


Truce

by lifeofsnark



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (I don't mention anything other than that the funeral happens), After the events of The Last Jedi, And so goes off to lick her wounds, Canon Compliant, F/M, For Science!, Kylo comes to Naboo where Rey is staying, Like I literally make them have sex For the Sake of the Force!, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, PLOT TAGS FIRST:, Post TLJ, Rey can't feel the Force anymore, Smut tags, Snark, Snuggling, Vaginal Sex, and Leia's offscreen funeral, and fuck, and they declare a truce, canon-verse, lonely babies are lonely together, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 06:11:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13381809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofsnark/pseuds/lifeofsnark
Summary: After the events of The Last Jedi and Leia's funeral Rey finally must face the truth: something has cut her off from the Force. She can still feel it out there, swirling around her, but she cannot access it any longer. She can't even make a leaf float. The only thing she can still feel is the bond- the connection, the whatever it is- with Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.Now considering herself a liability to the Resistance Rey flees to Naboo, a place Leia had called the most beautiful in the galaxy. Kylo, having felt Rey's distress, follows her there.~~~Excerpt:Kylo leaned back, his palms on the pier behind him. “My grandparents fell in love here,” he said. “Before… everything else.”(Before thousands of deaths, before betrayal, before the galaxy learned to fear the name Vader).They fell into a companionable silence. It was as though they’d called an unspoken truce; that this planet of undeniable perfection shouldn’t be marred even by their conflict.





	1. Chapter 1

Rey could feel him, could sense that turbulent energy the moment he flew into her system. It was almost the only thing she _could_ feel anymore. The Force was still there, it was always there (that had been just about the only thing Master Luke had been able to teach her). But she couldn’t _touch_ it anymore, she couldn’t feel that sense of potential flowing through her.

 

When she did manage to grab it, when she did finally bend the Force around her will enough to feel someone’s mind or lift an object it was _agony._ Pain seemed to swallow every cell of her being until she released her grasp on the Force and it slipped away again, leaving her shaky and more alone than ever.

 

That’s why she’d run away here- here to the place that Leia had called the most beautiful spot in the galaxy. She’d hoped to find solace here, maybe to feel closer to the woman she’d only known for a year, but there weren’t answers here. There never were.

 

The only thing- no, the only _person_ that Rey could still feel through the Force was Kylo Ren. The Force continued to open the connection between the two of them at odd times and now they’d progressed to feeling the other’s strong emotions. Rey suspected that recently Kylo had been feeling her despair.

 

He was here. She could feel him on the planet; it was like ...a change in the barometric pressure, the air itself pushing more tightly against Rey. She couldn’t avoid him and she was tired of trying. The only thing she could do now was pick her ground.

 

Rey walked back to her little cabin by the lake. She liked it, she’d chosen it, but it wasn’t home. So far ‘home’ didn’t exist. Contemplatively she washed her face, smoothed her hair back and picked up her wooden staff.

 

She didn’t have a saber anymore. She hadn’t held one since that day in the throne room- Snoke, the battle, the plea.

 

She was the last Jedi- alone, weaponless, and untrained. In a moment of bravado she’d told Kylo that she wouldn’t be the last, that light always triumphed. It didn’t look that way now.

 

Calmly Rey walked out to the little dock and sat down on it. He’d be expecting hostility. She wouldn’t give it to him. She mediated quietly, emptying her mind, just thinking of Ach-to’s waves sweeping in and out, in and out, lapping against that island from now until the end of time- serene and unstopping.

 

He stood behind her then, his energy as vibrant and restless as ever. “Why are you here?” he asked.

 

Rey didn’t turn.

 

“Why are you here? Why aren’t you off with what remains of the Resistance, waving the banner of freedom in my mother’s place?”

 

_Oh, how casually he mentioned his mother._

 

“I was a liability,” Rey said, still looking at the water. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to it, no matter how many planets she visited, no matter how many baths she took. Water was a miracle.  “I can’t fight anymore but you can feel me. Sometimes you can see me. Like I said- a liability.”

 

“Look at me,” he said. “Look at me!”

 

She rose slowly, gracefully, and pivoted on her heel to look at the man who had offered her the galaxy.

 

“Hello, Ben.”

 

The breeze was blowing through his dark curls. They were longer now; maybe he was too busy to go to the First Order barber. Or maybe there wasn’t a barber willing to risk the looks of their new, tempestuous Supreme Leader.

 

Kylo took a couple steps towards her, his heavy boots thudding on the dock’s wooden planking. “You’re telling the truth,” he said, those dark brown eyes intense.

 

“Of course I’m telling the kriffing truth,” Rey said, her calm and patience deserting her. Kylo’s stare always unnerved her; it had since that first time she’d seen him without his mask on Starkiller.

 

“Fuck!” Kylo shouted, his hands forming fists. He lunged off the dock and yelled again, practically vibrating with his rage. “Fuck!”

 

Rey stood where she was, stunned. Was this anger, this _grief…_ was it on her behalf?

 

“Kylo?” she asked. Then, even more tentatively, she tried, “Ben?”

 

He stood still, all dark, sharp lines against the pastel blur of the flowers behind him. He was out of place here just like she was.

 

“Why are _you_ here?” she finally asked. He hadn’t killed her yet, and she really didn’t have any other guesses. She’d already turned down the opportunity to rule at his side.

 

“I don’t know. I don’t kriffing know,” he said, staring at the toes of his boots. “I do know that I dream about you. That when my shields drop I feel your pain. I guess I wanted answers again, although there never _are_ any answers, only more fucking questions!”

 

His rage was back, a primal, elemental thing that Rey’s hindbrain recognized.

 

“Do you want to kill me?” Rey asked before the last of her self-possession deserted her as well.

 

“Oh, Rey,” he said, looking at her again. “No. I never wanted to kill you.”

 

He paced around, back and forth, and Rey finally got tired of watching him and sat back down. A few minutes later, five or six, maybe, he sat down beside her.

 

“Why did you come here?” he asked.

 

“Leia told me that this was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen,” Rey said, watching the sunlight play over the water. “After- after her funeral I knew I had to leave, so I came here.”

 

Kylo leaned back, his palms on the pier behind him. “My grandparents fell in love here,” he said. “Before… everything else.”

 

(Before thousands of deaths, before betrayal, before the galaxy learned to fear the name Vader).

 

They fell into a companionable silence. It was as though they’d called an unspoken truce; that this planet of undeniable perfection shouldn’t be marred even by their conflict.

“What are we doing?” Rey asked eventually. “Shouldn’t you be off ruling the galaxy?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How’s that going?” Rey was feeling awkward, now. Here she was in the most beautiful place on any of the known worlds with Kylo Ren, and apparently neither of them knew what they were doing.

 

Kylo heaved a great sigh and flopped onto his back. Rey was honestly shocked; she’d never have expected such ...relaxation from one of the most formal, high-strung creatures in existence.

 

“It’s going. It’s complicated and it’s boring, but it’s ….going. General Hux is honestly the biggest problem I’m having right now. If I didn’t know better I’d suggest he was a deeply undercover Resistance fighter.”

 

“Then why haven’t you killed him yet?”

 

Rey was trying to remember what she’d eaten that morning. She was having an almost irresistible urge to fix his hair, so obviously she must have eaten something that had gone off really, _really_ weird.

 

“Because then I’d have to do his job too.”

 

They paused again. All they could hear was the gentle flow of the river beneath the dock.

 

“Why can’t you fight?” Kylo finally asked. “All I get are ...echoes of agony.”

 

“Your end of the bond has been quiet,” said Rey, dodging the question.

 

“I haven’t had any reasons to smash things recently,” said Kylo drily. “What’s going on with you Rey?”

 

He turned to look up at her and suddenly Rey could see Ben, Leia’s son as he could have been.

 

“The Force… it’s left me,” she said. “I can’t touch it at all. I can still sense it swirling all around me, but… I can’t access it. It won’t come.”

She managed to say it dry-eyed. She’d learned not to cry long ago: tears were a waste of water when you lived in the desert.

 

A furrow formed between Kylo Ren’s brows. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

 

“Oh, you know so much about the Force now?” Rey asked. She hated talking about this.

 

“I know more than you do. Who here has actually had real Jedi training?” Kylo said, his tone arrogant once more.

 

“Then please diagnose my problem, Master Ren,” Rey drawled.

 

(Kylo worked hard to smother his spike of pleasure. He’d wanted to teach this woman for _ages._ )

 

“Try to use the Force. Pick up a leaf, sense me, whatever.”

 

Rey looked balefully at him.

 

He sat up and held up his hands, fingers splayed. “I won’t do anything! I’ll just watch.”

 

Rey closed her eyes and tried to ignore the big man sitting beside her. She looked at a leaf floating by in the water, attempted to guide the Force and… agony, on cue.

 

She dropped the Force and let out her pent-up breath. When she glanced at Kylo he was looking at her, his eyebrows drawn together and his gaze serious.

 

“I felt you through the-” he waved his hand vaguely in the air, “- the Force bond, the thing we share, but I couldn’t feel the Force around you.”

 

“Tell me about it,” said Rey. Even that small effort had left her with an ache in her temples.

 

“You need to open your shields so I can see. You’re locked up tighter than the Intergalatic Bank.”

 

The look Rey shot him was so full of sarcastic derision that he could practically _feel_ it. “I won’t do anything to you,” he said. “I swear. While we’re here I won’t try anything.”

 

“On your honor as a patricidal, genocidal, a whole bunch of other ‘idals” maniac?” asked Rey.

 

Kylo didn’t even wince. “Yes.”

 

 _He’s never really lied to you,_ some traitorous part of Rey thought. _He’s been honest with everyone about what he is and what he’s done._

 

“Truce,” she said finally. Something imperceptible seemed to soften in Kylo.

 

Rey couldn’t get her shields to open. She was trying, she knew she was, but she was closed as tightly in her own mind as Kylo had said. The first of the moons was visible when Rey finally stopped trying. Her head felt like it could split open and she was exhausted and thirsty.

 

“I can’t,” she finally said. “They won’t even open for me.”

 

They both knew that Kylo could force them open. They both also knew that it would leave Rey as a body with a pulse and not much else.

 

Kylo shrugged. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

 

“No we won’t,” said Rey, rising stiffly. “Go oppress someone else.”

 

She walked back to the cabin, painfully aware of Kylo following her.

 

“Go away.”

 

“No.”

 

Rey was horribly aware of the parallels between this and Ach-to; how she’d followed Luke. When she opened the door to the cabin she threw open the door and let Kylo get a good look inside. “You really want to do this? Your ship is right there.”

 

The cabin was essentially one big room with a little closet and ‘fresher partitioned off in the back. The bed was technically big enough for two people, but…

 

  1. Not if one of those people was the size of Kylo Ren and
  2. Definitely not available to people who happened to _be_ Kylo Ren.



 

“It’s not what you’re used to,” said Rey, moving to the cold box in the kitchen.

 

“You’d be surprised,” said Kylo, looking around the little room.

 

“Okay then,” said Rey, tossing one bottle of water to Kylo and taking another for herself. “Surprise me.”

 

“What?”

 

“Tell me about when you roughed it by going without your fancy shampoo or whatever.”

 

Rey flopped down in the padded wingback chair arranged in front of the woodstove. That left the battered recliner for Kylo. He sat down more gingerly than she did, and once he’d ascertained that the chair would support his weight he stretched his black-clad legs out in front of him.

 

“You met my father,” he said, and for the first time in a long time thinking of Han Solo didn’t send self loathing and confusion spiraling through Kylo’s system. “When I was about, I don’t know, six, he and I started spending a lot of time together. I was getting bored in the daycares of various governments through all the systems my mother visited, and it was apparent then that I’d be strong with the Force. So It was decided that I was old enough to go out with my father.”

 

“What did he do after the war?” Rey asked, eager to hear eyewitness accounts of life with one of the galaxy’s greatest heroes.

 

“He shuttled diplomats around for a while but that _really_ didn’t work out. After that he mostly made aid deliveries to outer planets or ones with little civil wars. He wanted to be somewhere dangerous, but he wouldn’t go back to smuggling. It was one of the only things he did for my mother.”

 

“What was it like?”

 

Rey curled up in her seat, the water bottle held tight to her chest like a toddler’s favorite toy.

 

“It was fun. He and I had so much fun together for several years. I had a little bunk in what was probably supposed to be a storage closet, Chewie was next door, and dad slept in the captain’s room.”

 

 _I wonder if he knows he just called Han ‘dad’,_ Rey wondered.

 

“Chewie taught me to play Dejarik, and we’d play for extra helpings of dessert. Dad taught me to play poker with the small change from whatever system we’d visited. Life on the Millenium Falcon certainly wasn’t cushy. Sometimes, on-planet, we’d camp out, see the flora and fauna. Dad would get a bottle of whatever the natives had fermented and Uncle Chewie and I would hang out. We stayed in places like this all the time.”

 

“What happened then?” asked Rey, endlessly curious. “Why did the fun stop?”

 

Kylo was silent for so long that Rey suspected he was done talking for the night.

 

Finally he said, “I grew up. I got stronger in the Force and it scared him, I think. I was asking questions he didn’t know how to answer. He sent me to my mother who did her best, but… I could see the fear in her eyes. She was constantly monitoring me for the madness of my grandfather, constantly coddling me, trying to force me to be like other kids. So she sent me away again, this time to Luke.”

 

Rey knew the rest of that story. “I’m sorry,” she said finally.

 

It didn’t cover it. She was sorry for who he’d been, the powerful boy with parents who had feared him, who hadn’t known what to do. It didn’t excuse what he’d done. Patricide and genocide weren’t things that could be justified away, but it… helped. Knowing helped.

 

Kylo continued to watch logs burning in the wood stove as Rey got up and padded into the ‘fresher. He heard water running, a drawer opening and closing. Kylo continued to think about the past, about Uncle Chewie and his father. About the things they all- himself included- could have done differently.

 

Rey came out in a tunic and loose pants. She walked right past him, conspicuously _not looking at him_ as she climbed into the bed. She threw a pillow and throw blanket at him before pulling the covers up and rolling so her back was to Kylo.

 

“Thank you,” he said, carefully reclining the old chair.

She didn’t reply.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey gets a present.  
> Kylo tells a story.

He was gone when Rey woke up. The pillow was in the seat of the chair, the raggedy throw folded on top of it. 

 

Rey shrugged off his disappearance- he’d gotten what information from her that he could and he was gone again, off to rule his new kingdom. Everybody left eventually. 

 

She got up and began her day, still taking pleasure in having her own bed to make. She ate one of the Resistance rations and one of the sticky-sweet shuura fruits that grew wildly over the planet. 

 

Rey wasn’t used to sloth. She had no idea how to fill her days now that she wasn’t fighting to survive. She had plenty of food, she wasn’t running from anything (well, not really, not  _ actually  _ running) and she had as much water as she could want. 

 

She didn’t have a mission. She didn’t have a purpose.

 

“Rey!”

 

She knew that voice. Rey turned slowly and saw Kylo striding towards her with a pack swung over his back. 

 

_ Well, kriff.  _

 

“I thought you’d left,” she said as he dropped his pack on the cabin floor. 

 

“Went to get supplies,” he said. “I don’t think I’d survive two nights in that chair.”

 

(Rey made a mental note to herself: always get to the wingback first.)

 

“Told you that you couldn’t rough it,” she said, setting the little caf brewer on the stove. 

 

“Do you really want me to wear the same set of clothes day after day?” Kylo asked. 

 

Wait- “You’re planning on staying a while?” asked Rey, trying to quash her feeling of panic. 

 

“I’m not leaving until we figure out what’s wrong with you,” said Kylo, shoving what looked like a pallet and blanket under her bed. 

 

“ _ Why?”  _ asked Rey, genuinely puzzled. 

 

Kylo turned to look at her then. “It’s no fun fighting someone who can’t fight back,” he said. 

 

Rey had had enough. “Really? Tell that to all the people living on the planets you’ve destroyed. What could they have done to you? What defenses did  _ they  _ have?”

 

Kylo didn’t look away. He didn’t flinch. “You called me a monster once,” he said. “And I agreed. I know what I am. I know what I’ve done; what I have allowed to be done.”

 

They looked at each other for a long moment with the counter between them while the caf shrieked on the stove. 

 

Rey broke their connection. She grabbed the brewer, pressed the plunger, and poured herself a mug. 

 

“This has always been about you and me,” said Kylo quietly. “About us.”

 

“This has always been about  _ you,”  _ Rey said, adding shuura sap to her caf. 

 

Kylo reached over Rey for a mug and poured himself a cup as well. Rey was once again reminded just how  _ big  _ he was. “You- um-”

 

_ What has she been saying? _

 

“You’re the one who went Dark, you’re the one who had to destroy your family, Luke included. I just got dragged into your mess,” she said. 

 

“Mostly that’s true,” said Kylo. 

 

_ Of-kriffing-course he took his caf black. The man only did things in monochrome. _

 

“But there aren’t any coincidences when it comes to the Force. You got dragged in for a reason. Like it or not, convenient or not, the Force  _ did  _ choose you.”

 

“So it chose me only to abandon me later?” asked Rey. She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice; the echoes of deep-set pain.  _ Everyone- everything- leaves eventually.  _

 

Kylo continued to look at her. It seemed that the more upset Rey got the calmer it made him. 

 

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’d like to try to fix it.”

 

They looked at each other in silence, their caf steaming into the cool morning air. 

 

Kylo sat down on a stool by the counter. He made the perch look tiny. “There was a prophecy, or a legend, or whatever you choose to call it. But there has always been this… myth, that someday a Force-user would be born and they would finally bring balance to the Force. Many thought that it was my grandfather; he was conceived by the Force itself. Maybe it was him, or maybe it’s all a lie, but…” he trailed off. 

 

“You believe that- that- that  _ fairytale?”  _ asked Rey, incredulous. 

 

Kylo gave his typical half-shrug. “I don’t know. I know the Force is real, I know that some can use it, some can feel it, and some are about as sensitive to it as rocks. Once you believe in this… magic, how is it so difficult to believe the rest?”

 

He was being reasonable.  _ Kylo Ren  _ was sitting in her kitchen drinking caf and being  _ reasonable.  _

 

“So… you think that you’re part of this prophecy?” Rey asked eventually. 

 

“I think we both are.” 

 

He was looking at her again, the dark focus of those deep brown eyes on her. 

 

“Why?” 

 

“Because of-” he sighed heavily, “-something Snoke said.”

 

“And you believed him?” Rey asked, aghast.

 

“Not just because he said it. The Force is meant to be a balance, right? Light and dark. The good and the bad impulses of humanity, the very nature of our existence. When the dark becomes powerful someone rises up to champion the light.”

 

He gestured to Rey.

 

“Like most natural process the Force is always trying to reach a point of homeostasis. It craves a balance, requires a balance. The Force connected us- it can’t have been Snoke or it would have died when he did.  _ We  _ are connected.  _ We  _ are the light and the dark. If we worked together…”

 

“...we could  _ be  _ the balance of the Force,” Rey whispered. 

 

Kylo nodded, looking into his mug. “That was the mistake of the Jedi and the Sith. Luke realized this; it’s why he so adamantly decided to be the last of the Jedi. It wasn’t only from a place of fear. He reasoned that by weakening the Light he could weaken the Dark.”

 

“Clearly that didn’t work,” said Rey. 

 

Kylo glanced up at her, a smile quirking his mouth. “Clearly.”

 

They sat silently together until the pot of caf was gone. When Rey wandered out of the cabin Kylo followed her, his hands in his pockets. 

 

“I need to  _ do  _ something,” Rey said, her head turned not quite towards Kylo but not away from him either. 

 

“Let’s walk to my ship, there’s something there I want to show you,” he said. 

 

She shot him a suspicious look.

 

“We called truce, remember? Stop being insulting,” he said, striding off.

 

Rey refused to feel guilty, but she jogged to catch up with him. “So far you’ve kidnapped me 100% of the times I’ve come near your ship.”

 

Kylo shot her that crooked smirk again. “True. But we did call a truce.”

It was nice to take a walk across the moors to Kylo’s ship. A herd of shaak were grazing down by the water, their young being gently herded away from the bank. The sun was up and the flowers perpetually bloomed. It was beautiful, but it was starting to annoy Rey. It was almost  _ too  _ perfect. 

 

His command shuttle rested on one of the gentle swells of the moor. 

 

“You disabled the tracker, right?”

 

“And all comms,” said Kylo, lowering the main hatch. 

 

Rey waited outside while Kylo went in to get whatever it was he wanted. He’d said that he hadn’t wanted to kidnap her, but… it was still smart to not tempt him too much. Sticking her head in the Nexu’s mouth wasn’t the best idea.

 

He came back with a quarterstaff of deep, blue-grey metal. He handed it over to Rey without ceremony. “It’s made of the same material as Phasma’s staff and blaster. A saber won’t sever it.”

 

Rey spun it around her and lunged, enjoying the feel of a staff again. “It’s nice,” she said, handing it back to him.

 

Kylo stepped away. “It’s for you. We broke Anakin’s lightsaber-” a brief pause just a heartbeat in length- “and I knew you needed a weapon.”

 

Rey tilted the staff from side to side, enjoying the weight of the material. “Back to the whole ‘it’s no fun fighting unarmed enemies’ thing again?”

 

“Something like that,” said Kylo. “We could spar, if you’d like. We can’t work on your shields all day, you’d burn out.”

 

Rey shrugged, trying to hide her enthusiasm for the idea and her confusion over Kylo’s gift. “Alright.”

 

They moved away from the ship and Rey dropped into a fighting stance. She’d enjoyed the lightsaber, but this- she  _ knew  _ this. 

 

“Hit the thumb switch,” Kylo said. 

 

When she did, the staff seemed to hum to life. 

 

“One tap won’t kill me, but it’ll give me a hell of a jolt,” he warned. 

 

“Got it,” said Rey. She loved this thing already. 

 

As far as training matches went, Kylo was brutal. He was huge and he fought with his whole body, with his whole self, and with single minded purpose. 

 

“Be faster,” he kept shouting. “You won’t out muscle me, your reach isn’t longer than mine, so you have to be  _ faster.” _

 

Rey didn’t think anyone would be faster than Kylo. When it came to combat she suspected he didn’t have an equal. 

 

“Better,” Kylo said after a while, letting his saber go dark. 

 

Rey was breathing hard, her shoulders ached, and she just wanted to flop back into the grass. It was  _ wonderful.  _

 

She smiled as they started to walk back. “Do you always train with your saber?” she asked. “Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”

 

“It isn’t kind of dangerous, it is dangerous,” said Kylo. “But yes- now I always train with the saber. It is much more difficult to stop a blow just before it hits than let the training sword hit my opponent. It’s taught me control.”

 

Rey thought about practicing at that level of precision. It sounded dangerous and nearly impossible. 

 

When they were back to area around the cabin Rey looked longingly at the water. “I wish I could swim here,” she said. 

 

“Can you swim?” asked Kylo. When she shot him a look he said, “Hey, you grew up on Jakku. It’s a fair question.”

 

“No,” said Rey. “But I can’t even learn here because I’d get eaten by some horrible monster.”

 

“Every planet has its downfall,” said Kylo easily. 

 

Rey took a shower instead of swimming. She exited the cabin immediately when Kylo stepped into the ‘fresher. She surely didn’t want to be in there while he was naked in the water. 

 

She was meditating on the dock when Kylo yelled to her, “Do you want food?” 

 

It was just too much- too much domesticity, too much change, too much emotional turbulence.

 

She didn’t bother to lie and say no. She just stomped off into the woods behind the cabin. 

 

Rey had spent most of her life alone and dreaming of a family and a place to belong. In some ways she’d found that- she’d found the Resistance and had developed ties to Leia and Finn and Poe. They were good people, loyal and brave, and she loved them.

 

But. 

 

Being with all of those people, people with bonds between them, old and new, had awoken that long-numbed feeling of loneliness inside her. She wanted to belong somewhere for herself, not because of what she could bring the Resistance. She wanted to make her own routines. 

 

It was a selfish attitude in a time of war and she knew that. She had shoved the feeling down low and ignored it. When she’d finally had to admit to herself that she couldn’t use the Force anymore, that Kylo Ren could find her it had  _ almost  _ been a relief to leave. 

 

And now here he was. Everywhere she turned, there was Kylo Ren. 

 

Eventually, as the shadows grew longer and the first moon rose, Rey walked back to the cabin. How quickly she’d gotten used to three meals a day. 

 

Kylo didn’t say anything when she stalked into the kitchen and opened one of the C-Paks that had been taken from the Resistance stores. It began to heat itself as soon as the lid was off, and thirty seconds later Rey tucked in. 

 

“I’m not sure how you’re eating that,” Kylo commented. He still hadn’t looked at her, and she noticed he was sitting in  _ her  _ wingback chair.

 

“Because it’s food, you kriffing snob,” she mumbled around a bite of grey meat in an ...odd cream sauce. 

 

Kylo shrugged. His attitude towards food only confirmed Rey’s suspicions that his had been a particularly affluent childhood. 

 

“We didn’t have time to work on your shields today,” said Kylo evenly as Rey incinerated the C-Pak tray. 

 

Rey grunted. She had been brought low enough to actually  _ grunt  _ at the man. 

 

“We should work on them now,” he said, still calm.

 

“Why?” asked Rey. “How does this end? If I regain use of the Force and have the weapon that  _ you gave me  _ are we suddenly going to try to kill each other again? If that’s the plan, it’s kriffing stupid.”

 

“I don’t know,” said Kylo. “I already told you- I’ve never wanted to kill you. I still don’t.”

 

“I’m not going to join you,” Rey reiterated as she sat in the empty armchair. He was right, it really was horrendous. 

 

“We’ll see,” he said. “Get comfortable-”

 

“-in this thing? Yeah right,” groused Rey. She was in an awful mood.

 

“Then lay on your bed,” Kylo replied, and this time he sounded as though he was running out of patience.

 

Rey flopped onto her bed and put a forearm over her eyes. 

 

“Now what?”

 

“Try to open your shields again. Don’t try to force them open, just… relax. There’s nobody around but me, and I don’t mean you harm. There’s nothing here, no one to bother you.”

 

“But you,” Rey mumbled. 

 

Her shields wouldn’t open. She tried again, tried to meditate herself into a place of serenity. 

 

They gave up when the third moon hung low and heavy in the sky, illuminating the bed where Rey lay with aching temples. 

 

“I haven’t seen this before either,” he said, his brow furrowed. “There’s something else I want to try.”

 

“Why did you say it like that?” she asked, suspicion rising again. 

 

Kylo had to remind himself that he deserved this- he deserved her suspicions, her distrust, her  _ hate,  _ and so much more besides. 

 

“Because you probably won’t like it,” he said. “There’s really three times when someone’s shields are naturally weakest: when they’re asleep, when they’re out of their mind with fever, and ...right after climaxing.”

 

Rey just looked at him. She swallowed, and Kylo watched as her throat worked. “And which of these are you suggesting we try?” she asked him. 

 

“Tonight? Sleeping.”

 

“And if it doesn’t work? Are you planning on poisoning me?” 

 

Her teeth were bared now, and he remembered how she’d looked as she’d stood over him, her lightsaber turning the snow into trillions of tiny prisms. 

 

“Not poisoning you, no.”

 

They looked at each other, each wondering what the other was thinking. 

 

“Fine,” said Rey. She stomped off to the ‘fresher, scrubbed her teeth with ferocious energy, and stomped back. She got in the bed, yanked the covers over herself so viciously that she uncovered her feet, and lay as unyieldingly as a plank on the mattress. 

  
  


This wasn’t going to work. 

 

Kylo thought of the stories his father had once told him- those would never work with Rey. He thought of his (Ben’s) mother and the stories she used to tell. One of them seemed particularly pertinent now.

 

“There once was a girl- a nobody, the daughter of the village recluse- who saved a prince,” he said, trying to remember the story, trying to keep his voice low and gentle. “The prince had been cursed, for he thought of no one but himself and his...power,” Kylo said, making a spur of the moment change. 

 

“The prince turned into a monster when the curse took him, his real face hidden by the mask of his fury and hatred. The girl’s father owed the prince a debt, and so the prince took the father, claiming a life-right.”

 

Kylo watched by the light of the three moons as Rey slowly relaxed into the mattress. When he gently, ever so gently, sent a probe skimming over her shields he felt them relaxing as well. 

 

“The girl wasn’t having that. Her name was Beauty, and she was one, both inside and out. She stormed up to the castle, faced the hideous prince, and demanded that he release her father. When the prince refused she went away, saying she would return the next day to ask again. She returned every single day, rain or shine.”

 

Rey was breathing evenly and deeply, and Kylo watched as her fingers twitched on the pillow next to her face. He lowered his voice even more and continued, “One day when she came back the prince asked why she hadn’t given up and gone home to return to her life. ‘Because I love my father’, she said. ‘And there is still some light left in you. I’ve seen it.’”

 

Kylo sat quietly in the shadowed room until he was sure Rey was deeply asleep. When he skimmed through her mind again he found the surface layer open to him. He discovered that she liked his voice, that she was dreaming of a monster in a mask. When Kylo tried to move deeper he was blocked again, those shields still hard and unyielding. 

 

Curious and feeling only mildly like a voyeur Kylo remained in Rey’s dreams for a long time after she’d fallen asleep. She dreamed of things that pleased her- the ocean around Ach-to, the sweetcream treat his mother had given her- and she dreamed of things that frightened her and saddened her. He was in that category, his hand stretched towards her as he came as close to begging as he ever had. 

 

Under it all was still that deep well of loneliness, powerful and vast, the one that threatened to suck her in every single day. Kylo recognized that well- he’d fallen into it once, and he still hadn’t found a way to pull himself back out. 

 

Eventually Kylo fell asleep too, and for the first night in many nights he stayed asleep until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. 
> 
> Y'all know what happens next chapter! Thank you for reading :) I actually really like this story. I think it's one of the prettiest ones I've written in a while.
> 
> As always, your comments keep me alive and writing. Please let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep didn't work and poisoning is off the table, so you know what they're going to try next...

Kylo woke slowly, which was unusual for him. Usually he came awake abruptly, fully aware of where he was and what was happening. It was a skill he’d developed after nearly two decades of serving Snoke and fighting for status and survival. 

 

Today, though, he was groggy and stiff. His neck hurt and he could smell caf and… something else. 

 

The cabin-  _ Rey.  _ He pried himself out of the chair and watched her at the counter. Her hair was tied on top of her head slightly off center and little wisps had fallen down around her face. 

 

She watched him in silence as he poured himself a mug of caf. “Did it work?” she asked after he took his first sip. He deeply appreciated that she’d allowed him to get the drink first. 

 

“No. Your outermost shields dropped, so I could feel general emotions and the most obvious of thoughts- you know how it works- but I couldn’t get any deeper. Those shields were locked down.” 

 

“So plan B is…?” she whispered. 

 

“Pleasure,” he said. 

 

They both wandered outside. The grass underfoot was damp with dew. Kylo was hopeful; she hadn’t shot down his plan right off the bat. She must be more desperate to regain her sense of the Force than he’d thought. 

 

“How would it work?” she asked him once they were out in the sun. “Would you have to be, um. Involved?” She was blushing furiously, the pink of her cheeks making her smattering of freckles more pronounced. 

 

“No. I can hang out on the porch. I just need to be close enough to sense when the, er,  _ opportunity  _ presents itself.” 

 

“Okay. I haven’t ever, you know. With a guy.”

 

“Really?” Kylo finally looked at her straight on then. She was still in profile, refusing to look at him. 

 

“Yes, really. There weren’t any opportunities in Jakku even if I’d wanted it, even if it had been safe.”

 

“Fair point,” he said. 

 

“What about you?” Rey asked. 

 

Kylo couldn’t tell if she was genuinely curious or if she was just trying to make this less awkward for them. “No. No girls for me.”

 

Rey nodded to herself. 

 

“I’d like to get this over with,” she said. “I don’t think I can handle this hanging over my head all day.”

 

“Understandable,” said Kylo. 

 

Rey walked back into the cabin and mechanically washed her mug and hung it to dry. Kylo wasn’t visible through the windows and that… helped. He was trying to give her her privacy. 

 

She’d asked herself last night how much she wanted her use of the Force back. She could lose her dignity or she could potentially lose the Force forever. The trade-off didn’t seem worth it. 

 

After much internal debate she took off her pants and breast band but left her long sleep tunic on. Even though Kylo couldn’t actually see her it made this whole thing feel a little less decadent and a little more clinical. 

 

Alright. Now she only needed to think of something  arousing. She tried to think of the nameless, featureless man she’d always imagined when she was out in the desert. He wasn’t doing it for her. 

 

Rey lay there and pulled her pillow over her head. She hadn’t done this all that often- maybe three or four times at most- when she was back on Jakku. This activity required an awful lot of moisture, and she honestly hadn’t had enough to spare. 

 

Eventually she shuffled out onto the porch, still pantsless. Kylo was around the other side of the house, his back to the wall where the bed was. 

 

“This isn’t working,” she said. 

 

Kylo glanced at her and then quickly looked away. He had no idea what to say.

 

“I know you haven’t been with girls but do you know what you’re doing?” she asked all in a rush. “I mean, you don’t have to. Probably it would be better if you didn’t, actually, so I’ll just go back inside and try again.”

 

_ That was stupid. That was so stupid, and she didn’t know why she’d asked him and she didn’t know what she was doing and- _

 

She had just turned around when he quietly said, “Rey.”

 

She turned and watched as he slowly stood, all power and grace. “Rey- if you’d like me to help somehow, I will, to whatever extent you’ll allow.”

 

She swallowed hard, her mouth gone dry. “You don’t feel like you have to, do you? That would be ...worse.”

 

He walked to her with long, slow steps. “Rey… I’ve wanted you since you hissed at me on Starkiller base and told me that I was afraid.”

 

Rey didn’t know if that made this better or somehow even creepier. She could think about that later. 

 

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. I’d like that.”

 

Kylo closed that last inch remaining between them and kissed her. Those big hands of his cradled her face and his lips- his lips were shockingly soft and gentle. He pressed dozens of tiny kisses to her before cocking his head and licking over the seam of her lips. 

 

Rey squeaked, a tiny sound of surprise, and Kylo took advantage of that fact by teasing his way into her mouth. Kylo partitioned off a tiny corner of his mind to figure out how to get them both inside and to the bed without Rey losing confidence in this plan. 

 

He tugged away and watched as her pupils slowly focused on him. “Inside?” he asked. 

 

“Inside.”

 

She walked in front of him into the cabin, occasionally tugging down the hem of her tunic that kept revealing the smooth bottom curve of her ass. Kylo tried not to focus on it, but like a magnet his gaze kept returning. He wondered how she was that golden tan color even there. Did she lay out in the desert without any clothes whatsoever?

 

She paused by the bed and turned to him. 

 

“We can stop,” Kylo offered even though he suspected stopping might shave at least a couple years off his life. 

 

“No, no. I want to,” said Rey, still playing with the edge of her shirt. 

 

Kylo kissed her again, slow and soft, and this time he let his hands run down the curve of her waist to her hips. He tugged her against him, enjoying the way she fit there. He nudged her back until her knees hit the bed and she sat down. 

 

“You trust me, right?” he said, dropping a pillow off the bed onto the floor. 

 

“For this, yes,” said Rey. It was a good as Kylo was going to get, and he knew that. “Just relax, okay? This isn’t going to hurt.”

 

He knelt down on the pillow and surveyed Rey sprawled out before him. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her  _ everywhere.  _ Maybe later he could talk her into that, but at the moment he was on a mission. 

 

When he touched her thighs she jumped so Kylo shushed her and spent a moment just stroking her legs, her hips, her belly. He teased a breast as he insinuated himself between her knees, and he nearly forgot how to breathe when he used his thumbs to reveal that softest, pinkest part of Rey. 

 

Kylo scooped her ass into his palms and tugged her butt to the edge of the bed. He’d seen a holo of this before (a long time ago, but it was one of those things that really  _ stuck  _ with a fourteen year old trainee). He swung Rey’s legs over his shoulders (so soft, so strong) and nosed into the curls at the apex of her thighs. 

 

Kylo had one distinct advantage over other new lovers- he could sense Rey’s most urgent feelings through the bond they shared. She was excited and nervous, her little hands fisting in the blanket on top of the bed. When his tongue licked up over her clit she moaned, a wanton sound, and Kylo stopped questioning himself and refused to feel guilty until afterwards. He did it again, feeling the surprise and embarrassment in her mind slowly turn to pleasure and carnal greed. 

 

As he sucked on her clit her fingers found their way into his hair and Kylo rather suspected that he could keep this up indefinitely, right up until he starved to death or his jaw locked up. She was going slick from his ministrations, and soon her hips tilted up into him. That was  _ perfect.  _ It was a tiny little movement but it had been  _ towards  _ him and that was a wonderful thing. 

 

Slowly Kylo slid a finger into her, amazed at the softness and the heat. She was a sun, pulling him in, and he was ready to be cleansed by her fire. He added another finger and her hips rocked again, and then again, and then they had a rhythm going, they were moving together towards the goal, and he was in her head and in her pussy and she was in his mouth and it was  _ right.  _

 

She came in a rush, her back arching off the bed and her thighs clamped down over his ears. He  _ threw  _ himself down their bond and into her thoughts which were scattered and blazing and filled with him. There- the lower shields were open, there were her hopes and her fears and just as he glimpsed them-

 

Her shields were down again and she was sprawled on the bed, her hand slowly stroking over her own stomach, a pleased smile on her face. Hastily Kylo wiped his face on the blanket and stretched out next to her still fully dressed. She needed to come again, needed to be so wrung out with pleasure that she would lower her shields for longer than a moment. 

 

“It worked,” he whispered into her ear as he nibbled on her neck. “The shields dropped, just for a moment. We should do it again, tire you out this way.”

 

Kylo really did attempt to keep his own opinions out of this. So what if this was something about which he’d been dreaming for months? So what if  _ this  _ was the thing that made him feel good, feel important? Hang the galaxy,  _ Rey  _ had come apart for him,  _ Rey  _ had handed over her trust, and Kylo suspected nothing would ever compare. 

 

“You too,” she murmured, raising her chin so Kylo could suck a wet kiss to the skin there. 

 

“Hmm?” 

 

She could feel the question vibrating through the nipple he was worrying with his teeth. 

 

“Yes, again, but you have to come too. You’re a bit overdressed,” she whispered, ending on a little moan. His mouth felt so kriffing good. 

 

Kylo levered himself off the bed and stripped with brutal efficiency. He toed off his great black boots while yanking off his tunic and shirt. His heavy fatigues were unbuttoned and unzipped and then he was fabulously, gloriously naked and crawling back over Rey. 

 

“You too,” he ordered, tugging her to him so that he could yank her sleep shirt off over her head. 

 

Rey realized she was muttering to herself. “Yes, yes, oh maker, yes,” she chanted. Kylo’s head was at her breast and his fingers were playing between her legs and this felt  _ right  _ in a way that nothing had since she fixed the antenna of a lost BB unit. 

 

She was distracted by the movement of the muscles under Kylo’s skin as he hunched over her, braced on one arm. His shoulders seemed wide enough to block out the sun and hold up the sky. 

 

“Now, Ben,” Rey whispered, for he was Ben in those moments, so clever and gentle. 

 

He sopped his angry-looking cock up her slit, nudging against her clit. His prick was warmer than his fingers had been and Rey curled herself up just enough to watch as Kylo- Ben- sank into her. It was as erotic looking as it felt. She felt consumed by him.

 

When he looked up at her, his eyes hot and dark, Rey felt herself go liquid around him. 

 

“So beautiful,” he said, running his nose over her jaw as he rocked his hips into hers again. “So beautiful, just for me.”

 

Rey felt like she was supposed to  _ do  _ something, and experimentally she hitched one leg up over his hip. When he groaned into her ear she moved the other, twining herself around his body. The angle changed and Rey gasped as Kylo slid that final centimeter home. 

 

“So perfect,” Kylo rasped, bending to suck a nipple into his mouth. Rey moaned and Kylo  _ hmmed  _ his agreement. It seemed like her nerve endings were wired wrong; sensations were totally bypassing her brain and traveling straight to her cunny instead. 

 

“Ben, oh,  _ kriff,”  _ she whined. 

 

He balanced on one elbow, found her clit with his fingers and sealed his mouth over his. His hips were still working like pistons, hard and strong, and he was everywhere and he was in her and those fingers knew just what to do; it was like they’d done this a hundred times before in every universe there could be. 

 

When she came it was a violent thing, her back arching, her groan swallowed by the man over her, inside her, her mind fizzling away in trillions of overwrought neurons. 

 

This time Kylo didn’t pause to admire the dopamine-fueled fireworks shooting around in Rey’s skull, he didn’t even have time to savor his own completion that had been triggered by the spill-over of her  pleasure through the bond. He dived for the lower shields and rifled through her hidden thoughts as quickly as he could. Loneliness, loyalty, a bone deep sense of  _ right;  _ he rifled uncaringly through the cornerstones of her personality in search of answers.

 

More,  _ deeper. _

 

He could feel her physically began to still beneath him and within her psyche he dug deeper, not caring if it hurt anymore. She could recover. 

 

_ There.  _ There was the answer, and now that he’d seen it it was so obvious, so beautiful in its simplicity. 

 

“Rey,” he said, drawing back enough to look in her eyes. “It’s  _ you.  _ You’ve cut yourself off from the Force.”

 

“I don’t understand,” she said, wiggling enough for Kylo to move away. He rolled off to the side and watched her as she pulled herself into a sitting position against the pillows. They were naked, his come was still hot on her thighs, and all he could think about was the  _ answer.  _

 

“It’s you,” he repeated. “When I told you, when  _ Luke  _ told you that there was a spark of darkness inside you you feared it so much that you slowly cut yourself off from the Force entirely. You decided, or feared, the dark side so much that you completely isolated yourself from the Force rather than ever risk accessing the dark.”

 

Rey looked at him, her hazel eyes wide, before slipping off the bed and scurrying to the ‘fresher. 

 

“Rey-” Kylo slid off the bed and padded after her. He heard the lock click and he leaned his forehead against the door. “Rey,” he said again, more quietly. 

 

He could feel her anguish flooding from the bond and into himself. He wasn’t sure if she believed him- which would be worse? Being lied to by a lover over something this important, or having created your own jail? He stood quietly and listened to the water run.

 

“Rey,” he said again, quietly. 

 

The door unlocked. 

 

He gave her a moment to collect herself before stepping inside the steamy little room. 

 

Rey was wrapped in a towel and sitting on the closed lip of the toilet. Her hair was wet and straggling down her back and she looked so incredibly, painfully young. 

 

Kylo sat down (still naked, still smelling of her) in front of her, his knees drawn up, his feet on either side of her perch. 

 

“I don’t want to believe you,” she whispered. “I don’t want it to be true.”

 

Kylo didn’t have anything to say. Instead he leaned forward and took her hand. 

 

“You don’t have any reason to lie to me though,” she said. It was wasn’t said quite as a question, but Kylo still felt the need to reassure her. 

 

“No. I don’t have a reason to lie,” he said, and he deliberately lowered his shields. He let her see his own feelings about this, his confusion and worry and hope. 

 

They were quiet for a moment. The only sound in the tiny room was the intermittent  _ plink…. plink… _ of water rolling off Rey and onto the tiled floor. 

 

“Can it be undone?” Rey whispered. Her voice had a hitch in it and if it had been any other time, if it had been any other person, Kylo would have thumbed on his lightsaber and destroyed everything around him because how could people  _ deal  _ with this, how did people contain all these emotions and not explode like stars?

 

He tugged Rey off the toilet in a tangle of limbs and damp flesh and held her tightly to him. She fit in the crook of his body, her hips snug in his lap and her head tucked under his chin. 

 

(Surprise and need and gratefulness through the bond; Kylo could kill rancors for her.)

 

“I don’t know sweetheart,” he said. “We can try.”

 

They sat there together as the steam slowly receded from the mirror and Rey’s pulse slowed to something less frantic. Kylo wondered in a slightly unfocused way if he’s ever had this much contact with another person. When was the last time he’d touched someone other than Rey? It had been his father; Han had laid his hand over the cheek that now bore Rey’s mark.

 

“I stole some of Luke’s texts,” said Rey abruptly. “Do you think they could help me?”

 

Honestly? Kylo didn’t think so. Rey was something special, something new, someone created just for him. The Jedis of old wouldn’t know what to make of this situation. Kylo hadn’t lied to Rey yet. Was it worth it for this?

 

“Probably not,” he said finally. “We could still go get them if you like.” 

 

He wanted that more than anything now that it had been suggested. They’d both seen the future: they’d both seen themselves standing side by side, a unit that was strong with the Force. They’d just interpreted it differently; he thought she’d turn to the dark, she’d thought he would turn to the light. 

 

He suspected now that they didn’t have to change sides, they just needed to turn to each other. Maybe a trip through star systems was a step towards that. 

 

“Together?” she asked. 

 

Kylo couldn’t tell whether or not she liked that idea. “Yes, together.”

 

“The truce only lasted as long as we were here,” she said.

 

Kylo thought he could feel the stubborn set of her chin from where her cheek rested against his skin. She wasn’t going to make this easy on him, nor should she. 

 

“We’ll extend the truce. You and I- we will have peace between us until your connection to the Force is restored. And even then,” he said, cutting off her protest before she could even make it, “we can negotiate for another extension of the truce. I don’t want to hurt you, Rey,” he said, burying his lips in her hair. How many lifetimes would it take to convince her?

 

“Okay,” she said. It wasn’t yet midday and he could feel that she was exhausted to her bones. 

 

Kylo put her carefully back on the toilet lid and stepped into the ‘fresher shower. “How did you get here?” he asked as he scrubbed himself as quickly as he could. 

 

“Chewie dropped me off in the Falcon. I’ve got a transmitter for when I want to leave.” 

 

“When was your check-in date?” Kylo asked. He rinsed his hair and snagged a towel before stepping out of the shower stall. 

 

“Two days from now,” said Rey. She followed Kylo out of the ‘fresher and out into the rest of the cabin. Kylo dropped his towel, tugged on another pair of heavy black fatigues, and then towel dried his hair. 

 

She slowly put on her change of clothes as well and located her comb. 

 

“We should stay here until check-in,” said Rey. “Otherwise he’ll think I’ve been taken and coerced.”

 

“Of course,” said Kylo. “There are things I want to try until then, anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. This is going to be a longer story. I don't know how long because I can only really see a couple scenes and I don't know how they fit together, so unfortunately I won't have any logical updating schedule for this. 
> 
> (I have this weird thing where I just CAN'T abandon a project. I'm so proud that thus far I've managed to finish everything I've started posting and I don't want to break my streak!)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you thought and if you have any stupendous ideas for further chapters. Thank you for reading, and here is your reminder to sit up straight and roll your shoulders back!
> 
> <3 Chris


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Kylo leave Naboo and go on a date!

The day in between their shield experiment and Chewbacca’s message was peaceful and… strange. Maybe there was something in the water, or maybe Rey had finally started to believe the truth about Kylo’s intentions. They sparred, each smiling and snarling at the other. They ate together, they laid out on the dock in the minimum of clothing and soaked up the sun together. They poked and prodded at Rey’s shields, but those still held as stubbornly as their maker. 

 

Kylo slept on his pallet beside the bed both nights. They talked, talked until the third moon hung low in the sky and one of them drifted off to sleep mid-sentence. The darkness made them brave and they told each other of their childhoods, of their favorite foods, of memories too painful to explore in the light of day. 

 

Chewbacca was apparently still operating on smuggler’s hours because he pinged Rey around lunchtime on the second day. 

 

Rey smiled, shoved Kylo out the front door of the cabin, and answered the holo. 

 

“Hey Chewie,” she said, smiling at the wookie. He always sat slightly too close to the transmitter, not quite trusting the technology to work. 

 

The wookie warbled to her.

 

“I’m good,” said Rey. “Plenty of those C-Paks you got me left, and fruit grows all over the place here.”

 

The wookie grinned and said something.

 

“I am not going to get fat!” Rey said. “I’m doing my exercises, and besides, it’s fruit.”

 

The wookie looked amused and said something longer this time.

 

Rey’s smile melted away. “I- I know, Chewie and you’re right-”

 

He interrupted her, a loud call.

 

“-you are not always right! Anyway… I do. I need to go back eventually, I know they’re worried about me, but… I’m not ready. I still can’t use the force, and I can still feel Kylo Ren. I even see him sometimes, and that means he can see me.”

 

The wookie told her something, quiet and low. 

 

“I’ve thought that too,” she said. “Will you check back in with me in another week?”

 

Chewie nodded. 

 

“Be careful,” said Rey.

 

He ululated something softly and the holo cut off. 

 

“He likes you,” said Kylo. He was lounged in the doorframe, his broad body backlit by the afternoon light. 

 

“I like him,” said Rey, tucking the holo away. 

 

“You only asked for a week,” said Kylo, cocking his head incrementally to the side. 

 

Rey shrugged. “I didn’t think he’d believe more. We all knew I couldn’t stay away forever.”

 

“Do you need to grab anything else?” Kylo asked. This was a formality, they’d both been packed to leave all morning. 

 

“No, I’ve got everything,” said Rey, shouldering her pack. Kylo didn’t need to know that this was actually everything she owned. 

 

“Then let’s go.”

 

The walk across the flower fields of Naboo felt even more surreal than normal- the longer Rey remained on this planet the less real it felt.

 

The inside of Kylo’s shuttle was as ausere as every other First Order ship she’d seen. There were two seats at the controls in the narrow helm of the ship, a sleek dinette, a weapons bay, and three narrow cabins that were hardly wider than the bunks they contained. Rey poked into the corners and itched to take apart the circuit panel- how had they shrunk the shield generator so small?

 

“We’re getting ready to leave,” said Kylo. “Grab a seat while we exit the atmosphere.”

 

Rey buckled herself into the copilot’s seat and checked the tracker and comms. Engines were good, fuel levels were good, everything seemed ready to go.

 

“How did you know how to do that?” asked Kylo from beside her. 

 

“I dunno,” said Rey, still admiring all the controls. Someone clever had designed these; finally a small ship had the maneuverability that it deserved. 

 

“Rey-”

 

She turned to look at him, his tone was serious.

 

“How did you know how to do that?” he asked again. 

 

Rey started to feel nervous. Why shouldn’t she have known?

 

“I… don’t know,” she  said again, more slowly.  

 

Kylo sighed. He leaned towards Rey and rested his elbows on his knees. “I designed these controls,” he said slowly. 

 

“So… this isn’t normal?” asked Rey, her voice almost a whisper. 

 

“No. You knew exactly which controls to check, Rey, and you’ve never seen these before. You can understand Chewbacca and there are really only a few in the galaxy who can anymore. You delved into someone’s mind only minutes after learning that you had the Force and you move through Jedi forms like you’ve been doing them for years.”

 

Rey didn’t break eye contact. She couldn’t. 

 

“You think I know these things… because you know them,” she said.

 

“Yes. And before we… met,” he said, easily avoiding the term ‘kidnapping’, “I was able to work on engines, to see how things should fit together. I thought it was the Force, but I think it was you.”

 

Rey drew her legs up into the chair and rested her chin on her knees. 

 

“Did you ever get odd headaches right as the base of your skull?” she asked in a small voice. “Like your head was too small?”

 

Kylo just nodded, never taking that deep, dark gaze off of her. 

 

“This ...connection has been here the whole time, hasn’t it,” Rey whispered. 

 

“I think it has,” said Kylo. 

 

It was Rey who broke eye contact. She turned towards the front viewport and gestured to the controls. “You did a good job with this,” she said. 

 

Kylo was willing to let the topic change. “Thanks,” he said. “Maybe, if you’re nice, I’ll let you fly it.”

 

Rey grinned at him, and Kylo felt tension he hadn’t previously noticed uncoil in his stomach. 

 

“Ready to go?” he asked. 

 

“Yes,” she said. 

 

After so many years of pretending to maneuver the fallen starships and watching others freely leave the Jakku atmosphere it was still a thrill to feel that moment of pressure during takeoff. Rey smiled and leaned forward as the final whisps of atmosphere trailed behind them and all the stars of the system came into focus. 

 

When she glanced towards Kylo he was watching her and smiling. “Where to?” he asked. 

 

Rey realized she still hadn’t told him where she’d hidden the texts. “I hid them on Crait,” she said almost bashfully. 

 

Kylo looked at her for a long moment before smiling. “You were flying circles around me the whole time,” he said. 

 

Rey’s smile was glorious thing, it was dawn chasing away the shadows of an endless night. “I guess I was,” she said, and they both turned to the stars with smiles on their faces. 

~~~

Rey had lived a life marked by deprivation. She’d been rationed water, she’d been deprived of regular meals, and she hadn’t know what it was like to touch someone after the age of about four- she wasn’t actually sure how old she’d been when her parents had left her. 

 

Then, less than a year ago, BB-8 and Finn had come into her life and now everyone was touching her all the time. Finn had tried to hold her hand twice in that very first day. Leia had welcomed her with a hug; she’d hugged Leia before she’d even known the older woman’s name. Poe touched everyone all the time, he’d even kissed Rey on the cheek. It was bewildering to be thrust into that sea of welcoming bodies. 

 

Loneliness had numbed Rey to touch. One cannot miss what they don’t have, and Rey had never known how pleasurable it could be to embrace someone, how life affirming and warm it could be. The members of the Resistance had woken something inside Rey right along with the Force, and her ...interlude with Kylo in the cabin had brought it roaring to life. 

 

Rey was so aware of him now. She was so aware of the fact that they sat side by side in the shuttle, that they were alone on the ship, that she knew how his skin tasted. She wanted him to embrace her and yet part of her wanted to be dropped back off at Jakku. She knew how to deal with Jakku, she knew how to cope with numbness 

 

They’d been traveling to Crait in hyperspace for most of the morning. “We can be there today,” said Kylo. “But there’s somewhere else I’d like to take you first.”

 

“Where?” asked Rey, thankful for the distraction from her thoughts. 

 

“I’d like to surprise you. There isn’t a First Order presence there if it makes you feel any better.”

 

Rey weighed him up for a long moment. He still hadn’t lied to her. “Okay,” she said. 

 

They dropped out of hyperspace maybe twenty minutes later. 

 

“Oh,” said Rey, leaning closer to the window. “Where is this place?”

 

The planet they were approaching was swirled in blues and pinks and greens. 

 

“Rath,” said Kylo, watching Rey’s face. “They hold a week long festival here once a year and the entire system attends. There’s food and music and dancing and in the evenings the leaders tell stories.”

 

“You’ve been before?” asked Rey, and Kylo could see that her curious spark was back to its former brilliance. 

 

“I came once with dad and Chewie. It was the first and last time I’ve ever been drunk.” 

 

Rey laughed, and Kylo basked in her mirth. 

 

“Why is the planet pink?” asked Rey. “Is it something in the atmosphere?”

 

“You’ll see,” said Kylo. 

 

Rey practically bounced in her seat as Kylo landed the shuttle at the end of a long line of spacecrafts. 

 

“I told you it was popular,” said Kylo. “Hang on a second-”

 

He disappeared into one of the cabins and came out moments later in a green shirt and brown jacket. His hair was rumpled and he looked ...normal.

 

Rey didn’t know what to comment on first. She opened her mouth and then just stood there, taking it all in. 

 

Kylo shifted back and forth. “Look, sometimes the Knights of Ren need to get information and going in with flaming swords and masks wouldn’t be ideal, okay?”

 

Rey closed her mouth and nodded. 

 

It was immediately apparent why the planet was swirled through with pink. They were on a pink sand beach and within view were other islands of pink sand covered in lush green vegetation. There were iridescent arching bridges between the islands and people of all sizes and colors and shapes walking across them. 

 

Rey slowly turned in place, looking at the star ships and bridges and people. 

 

Kylo was watching Rey. This was part of what he’d wanted to give her back in the throne room. He knows now that it had all gone wrong, he sees that- but he’d wanted to give her everything to keep her at his side. 

 

This wonder of hers- he wanted to bask in it every day. 

 

“Can we go?” asked Rey, unaware of Kylo’s thoughts. 

 

“Sure,” he said, still in awe of her. Rey darted in front of him to the bridge and then bounced in place, waiting for him to catch up. Kylo wondered, not for the first time, how old she really was. He knew she hadn’t had a childhood and he wanted to give her back a piece of it now. 

 

“What do you want to do?” she asked as they walked up the curve of the arch. 

 

“I want real food,” said Kylo. He also wanted to feed her, but she didn’t need to know that. 

 

Rey stopped walking when they reached the top of the bridge. It was late afternoon on this planet and the suns were low on the horizon, casting a deep honey glow over the scene below. There were little wooden buildings on the islands and in between them were colorful booths and stalls, some covered with little tents. There were children darting through the crowds of people laughing and eating. People haggled over savories and trinkets and it was loud and it was happy and it was more than Rey ever expected to see. 

 

Kylo was surprised when she took his hand in hers- she’d initiated contact with him, her hand small and warm in his. “Thank you,” she said quietly. 

 

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

 

“I know, but- thank you.”

 

Rey initially tried to talk Kylo out of food and he couldn’t understand why. She looked at the vendors eagerly and she even ate the disgusting self-heating rations the Resistance had given her. Why not this?

 

It took him a minute to figure it out. She didn’t have any credits, she likely never had. Jakku was a barter economy and the Resistance was down to forty year old equipment, they didn’t have cash to spare. 

 

Finally, after he caught Rey licking her lips, he took her by the shoulders and turned her to him. 

 

“Rey- have you ever heard the old phrase, ‘Crime doesn’t pay’?”

 

She made an exasperated sound and rolled her eyes. “Of course it does,” she said. 

 

“You’re right- it does. I’ve got more credits than I’ll be able to spend in a decade. We can buy food. We could buy food from every single stall.”

 

She didn’t jump at the opportunity and she didn’t scoff at his offer. She just looked at him, calm and serious, her hazel eyes clear. Kylo got the feeling that his offer was being weighed and debated: in Rey’s world, nothing was truly free. 

 

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

 

Kylo grinned at her and tugged her to the stall that she’d eyed so longingly. They came away with a soft flat bread wrapped around some kind of smoked meat and pickled purple vegetables and creamy sauce. Rey decided then and there that it was the most wonderful thing she’d ever had, and that included the berry sweetcream from Leia. 

 

Rey caught Kylo eyeing her as she licked off her fingers. “Oh- sorry,” she said, wiping her fingers on her pants. “It was really good, thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Let’s see something else, and then we can eat some more.” He didn’t want Rey to get sick; her system had likely never been exposed to such a variety of foodstuffs. 

 

They found a Mauvian who told fortunes. “Let’s try,” said Kylo, who’d always been amused by such things before. 

 

Rey looked dubious. 

 

They entered the little booth and the Mauvian asked them to sit on the thickly carpeted floor. 

 

“Your hands, please,” the long-necked female asked. She took one of their hands in her own and closed her eyes. 

 

“No,” she said after just a moment. “These futures I cannot see; forces greater than yourselves are at play. I will not further influence them.”

 

They thanked the female and returned to the crowded street. Kylo shrugged it off but Rey was worried. 

 

“What did that mean?” she asked. 

 

“Nothing,” said Kylo. “She probably felt that we were both strong with the Force, so of course our fates aren’t our own. We were chosen long before this.”

 

He said it so calmly. Kylo had had nearly three decades to understand what it meant to be a Force user; he had family who understood. Until about six months ago Rey had fully expected to die young and alone in the Jakku desert. 

 

“You’re probably right,” she said. 

 

“I am,” said Kylo with his normal brand of arrogance. 

 

They wandered from island to island until two moons were high and bright in the sky. The activity level had fallen only minimally; the streets and booths were illuminated by small, twinkling lights and free-floating colored lanterns. They ate sticky-sweet spiced bread and sipped tart citrus juice. They saw acrobats and stunt riders and musicians of all species and cultures. 

 

Eventually they walked hand in hand back towards the shuttle. The pink sands looked white in the moonlight, and the bridges reflected the lights like opals, all green and pink and silver. 

 

“Thank you,” said Rey again. She was grateful for this chance to have seen Rath, to act like a normal woman for a night. Rey suspected that this had been some turning point for them; that she now saw Kylo first as a man with his own likes and dreams and only secondly as a dark Force user, as the man who had killed Han Solo. It was a slightly disturbing idea. 

 

“You’re welcome,” said Kylo, and then he gently nudged her back against the railing of the bridge and kissed her. He tasted of the juice they’d shared and Rey thought that this was how her first kiss should have been: soft and gentle and sweet. 

 

“I’m sorry, Rey,” said Kylo against the skin of jaw. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you and yours.”

 

“But you won’t stop,” she said, tugging him back to her lips. 

 

“We can’t,” he whispered. “We can only go forward from here.”

 

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pink sand is a real thing and it sounds romantic af. I kind of like this chapter, and I wanted them to go on a proper date! MY SPACE BABIES DESERVE A CHANCE TO ACT LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE, OKAY?! 
> 
> I considered waiting on this chapter because I REALLY don't know what happens next, but I thought you guys would enjoy it. I also needed to do something positive- in the last three days my dad has been to the ER, my roommate and I fought, my parent's dog (from when I was in high school) was put down, and my car stopped working on the highway and needs $600 in repairs. SO IT'S BEEN A TIME!
> 
> Please let me know what you think, and I hope all of you are having a lovely day and find a pocket dollar! <3 Chris


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Kylo go to Crait.  
> Revelations.

They left Rath the next day and Rey watched as the beautiful planet faded from sight. They were headed to Crait, the site of Luke’s final confrontation with his nephew, and Rey was suddenly aware once more than she was with Kylo Ren, Jedi killer and destroyer of planets. Rath and the treats and the handholding felt very distant, as though it had happened in a dream. 

 

“Where did you stash the texts?” asked Kylo, slowing their descent into Crait’s atmosphere.

 

“In the canyon. I stuffed them in a crevice just before I moved those rocks to let out Finn and Poe and everyone,” she said. “I was worried that you’d blow up the Falcon before I could get them somewhere safe.”

 

“I can’t believe that hunk of scrap still flies,” Kylo muttered, flying down to the jut of land above the canyon. 

 

Rey bristled. “It only looks bad on the outside; Chewie and I have all the hardware working just fine, thank you.”

 

Kylo just shrugged. Her attachment to the Millenium Falcon was illogical, especially since she’d only flown in it a handful of times. 

 

They landed on the bare rock at the top of the outcrop and exited the ship. It was eerily silent on the salt flats now; the only sound was the crunching of their boots over the salt crystals and the breeze slowly blowing dust over the deep red tracks they were creating. 

 

They slowly worked their way down the narrow path to the canyon’s bottom. Rey wondered what could have opened such a great gash in the earth. 

 

“They’re behind that heap of boulders,” she said, pointing to the pile of rubble she’d moved out of the way of the Resistance. 

 

Kylo have her a sardonic look over his shoulder. 

 

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I already had all the rocks up in the air,” she said defensively. 

 

Kylo held his hands palm-up at waist height. Slowly the boulders rose into the air, a tiny meteor belt of his own creation, and then one by one they thudded into place over the tunnel into the abandoned base. 

 

Rey wondered at the amount of control it must take to precisely and individually send the rocks into place like that. She’d been terrified of dropping the boulders onto her friends. 

 

Once the debris was cleared Rey went to the rock face and tucked herself into a shallow outcrop.

 

“They’re here,” she called. She tugged all four leather bound tomes from their hiding spot and tucked them into her bag. Hopefully these would reveal the connection between the two of them; hopefully she would finally have answers. 

 

Kylo looked at her for a long second before they began their climb back up to the ship. Rey wondered what he was thinking. 

 

The moment they were back aboard the shuttle Rey slid into the little dinette and pulled the books out of her bag. She passed two to Kylo and took two for herself. “You read these, I’ll read the others,” she told him. 

 

Kylo shrugged and disappeared into his cabin with the books. Rey wasn’t sure where his attitude had come from, but she didn’t much care. She had bigger things on her mind. 

 

The first text she opened was a history of the Jedi order that began just under 400 years ago. In it were lists of teachers and trainees and their specialties. Occasionally a disciplinary measure was recorded, and here and there a death date was listed for one of the masters. It was dry and seemed to be nothing more than a list of dates and dull occurrences. 

 

Rey set the history aside and picked up the second book. It was slimmer and older; the pages brittle and yellow. After flipping through it Rey discovered that it was a book of Jedi traditions; there was even a chapter on kyber crystals and the construction of lightsabers. Rey would come back to that later. 

 

She flipped from chapter to chapter looking at the titles and the few diagrams the pages contained. Nothing she skimmed mentioned a bond or an inexplicable loss of the Force.

 

Rey slowly and carefully lowered her forehead to the cool surface of the table. She could do this. She survived on Jakku, she survived without a family, she could survive losing the Force. 

 

“Rey.”

 

She looked up. That wasn’t Kylo’s voice, that was… 

 

“Luke?” she asked, gaping at the translucent Jedi Master in front of her. “But you’re dead!”

 

The shade of Luke- or whatever it was- smiled. “I’m technically dead, yes.”

 

“How- why?”

 

Growing up Rey had only heard of the Force in snippets and fairy tales. She hadn’t imagined that it was real, and she certainly hadn’t heard of Force Ghosts. 

 

“You needed advice. My own Master visited me several times this way. Rey- I failed you, just as I failed Ben. I failed the Jedi and myself.”

 

“No,” said Rey, wanting to correct him, wanting to comfort him even now when he was beyond earthly pain. 

 

“Yes,” said Luke, copying Rey’s tone. “I wanted to tell you that what you saw when you touched Ben’s hand is true. That  _ could _ be the future if you open yourself to it.”

 

Luke glanced around the shuttle for a moment and then looked back at Rey, his faded blue gaze serious. “We don’t need to pick sides of the Force,” he said. “What you said on Ach-To about life and decay and light and dark- it’s all one Force. Some people have an affinity for that natural magic and wonder and other don’t, but what defines us  _ is what we do with our power.” _

 

“But Luke-”

 

He was starting to fade away, and as he did Luke turned and blew a kiss towards Kylo, who was standing frozen in the doorway of his cabin. 

 

“Did you hear-?” asked Rey, standing abruptly. 

 

“I did,” said Kylo. He was paler than normal and scowling at the place where Luke had been. 

 

“I didn’t know ghosts were real!”

 

“They aren’t,” said Kylo slowly, still staring at the spot where Luke had been. “Only the strongest Force users can come back that way.”

 

“Oh.”

 

They stood in silence, just watching each other. 

 

“Did you find out anything about Force bonds or my ...problem in the texts?” asked Rey. Her voice sounded loud in the vacuum of charged silence around them. 

 

“Rey, you got your answer!” said Kylo. “The Force sent you Luke to  _ give you the answer.  _ How are you ignoring that?” 

 

_ Why you?  _ wailed Kylo in the privacy of his skull.  _ Why you, a nobody from nowhere; why not his family, why not  _ me? 

 

“I’m not!” she said, angry now. “It’s what we do that counts, yes, fine, but how does that help me  _ now?”  _

 

“You kriffing trust yourself,” Kylo shouted back. “You realize that you’ve already  _ used  _ the dark side and you did it with only the purest intentions of saving the people you love!”

 

Rey and Kylo stared at each other, their faces flushed and fists clenched. “I didn’t know,” said Rey finally. “I didn’t know it was the dark side, I just asked and it came.”

 

“I know,” said Kylo. His voice was softer now, a stark contrast to his previous statement. “And that’s how it should be. I’m realizing- or maybe I’ve always known- that intentions do count. They have to.”

 

Rey cocked his head to the side and Kylo had to look away from her. He needed to say this; he needed to admit it to her and himself, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to go through with it under that soft whiskey gaze. 

 

“Intentions… are important. People can do stupid things because they think it will ultimately be the right thing. Your… friends,” he said, and there was only the tiniest bit of derision in his tone, “killed a million people when they blew up Starkiller. Those lives were snuffed out just like those on D’Qar. You justify it by saying they were bad, but how many of them could have been like FN-2187?”

 

“Finn,” Rey corrected quietly. 

 

“You won’t know,” said Kylo pressing on. She needed to understand. “It’s the victors who decides who was ultimately right. Morals are relative.”

 

Rey cocked her head to the side and Kylo looked away once more. 

 

“I wanted to be a Jedi,” he said. He unclipped his saber and looked at the heavy black hilt, the dark metal concealing the crystal that had once been blue and pure. “I wanted to be a Jedi and I wanted to bring balance to the Force.

 

“Growing up-” Kylo twitched as though even now these memories were too painful to relive. “Growing up I could feel my mother’s fear before I learned to talk. She’d felt Snoke reaching for me in the womb, she knew I had the potential for darkness, and so she watched me without ceasing. 

 

“I was going to prove her wrong, I was going to prove all of them wrong,” said Kylo, his lips turning up in a humorless smile. “I was going to become a powerful Jedi so that I could find other kids like me and help them. If my mother taught me anything it was that only the people at the very top get to make decisions, make changes.

 

“When I left the Jedi academy that night- you already know what happened- I didn’t go to Snoke with dreams of riches or of taking over the galaxy. I only wanted to go somewhere where I wouldn’t be feared; where I wouldn’t be asked to sit inside and learn to write with pen and ink instead of playing with the other children. 

 

“Even later- after I knew Snoke for what he was- I didn’t believe the First Order’s claims of trying to design the most efficient form of government, of uniting the systems under a fair and equal rule. I didn’t care if we blew up planets. I didn’t care if I lived. I couldn’t leave, and so nothing mattered.”

 

Kylo took a deep, rattling breath, not sure if he had it in him to go on.

 

Rey slowly crossed the room to him. Gently she slid those strong, golden arms around him and tugged him close. Kylo buried his nose in her hair and squeezed his eyes shut, breathing in the smell of cheap shampoo and Rey herself. 

 

“If intentions don’t matter- if they can’t be taken into account- I should go ahead and let you kill me now,” he said, thankful that she couldn’t see his face. 

 

Rey didn’t move away, she just shifted so that her cheek was flat on his chest. “You told me that you didn’t want to kill me. I don’t want to kill you, Ben, and I won’t. I’m not going to kill you, not now, not ever.”

 

They stood together, wrapped in memories and regrets, for a long time. 

 

Kylo pulled away first. 

 

“What do you want to do now?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “We have five days left until Chewbacca calls and it’ll only take a day to get back to Naboo.”

 

Rey shrugged. “Come up with a plan, I guess.”

 

“A plan for what?” 

 

“Well, we’ve agreed we’re not going to kill each other. What are we going to do when we return to the Resistance and the First Order? When we meet on the battlefield are we going to wave hello and then kill the other person’s friends?”

 

Kylo pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to have this conversation, he didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to run away with her to some uninhabited planet and live in peace for the rest of his days. 

 

“I don’t know, Rey,” he said. Suddenly Kylo was so tired of fighting. He’d spent his youth fighting his own nature and the worries of his parents. He’d spent his teenage years fighting to become the best apprentice Luke could have, to keep his affiliation for the dark side a secret. As an adult he’d fought for survival, for privacy inside his own mind. He’d fought because he had nothing to go back to. 

 

He didn’t want to fight with Rey. He didn’t want to rule. Kylo didn’t know what he wanted other than that it involved the girl in front of him. 

 

“We need a plan!” Rey yelled at Kylo’s back when he turned and walked into his cabin once more. 

 

As Kylo shut the door on her he briefly thought that she was as changeable as the breeze: one moment soft and sweet, the next hissing and spitting like a little desert cat. 

 

Honestly, Kylo rather liked it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it! This chapter is particularly plotty, but AS YOU CAN TELL this story has basically become an Episode IX speculation fic. Hopefully most of you will stick around! I'm guessing that this is going to be about nine chapters long total and there will be a happy ending. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Also, thank you to all who have left comments for me. You guys are so encouraging and SMART, I have loved getting to chat with you.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunion with the Resistance.

Rey at on the shuttle’s entrance ramp and watched as the light of Crait’s sun reflected off the salt crystals. It looked a little bit like snow, all that shining white covering up the wounds of the world. The glare made her squint- sometimes it was easy to forget that the sun could be just as blinding as darkness.

 

She didn’t know what to do next. Something had to give- this interminable war had to end at some point, and she and Kylo were in positions to help make that happen. But…

 

There was a ship flying towards her, high in the atmosphere. No one should be here- no one should know.

 

Rey sprinted back inside, smashed the door to the shuttle closed, and burst into Kylo’s room. He was laying on his back with his forearm over his eyes.

 

“Someone’s coming,” she yelled, and then she’d run to the front of the shuttle and was flipping on controls.

 

“Come on come on come _on,”_ she muttered under her breath. Kylo came and stood behind her, bending so that he could look up at the approaching ship.

 

“It’s the Falcon,” he said, and Rey looked again. The ship was closer now and no longer backlit by the sun- it was the Millenium Falcon. Somehow Chewie had found her.

 

“No point in running now,” Kylo said as the ship slowed and hovered over their own.

 

“I bet you wish you’d made a plan with me now,” she mumbled.

 

They opened the hatch and walked out into the sun. Chewie was exiting the Falcon, followed by Poe and Finn and Rose and BB8 and one of the pilot’s from Poe’s team.

 

“What are you doing here?” Rey asked as the Wookie roared.

 

“What are we doing here?” asked Finn loudly. “We were coming to rescue you! Your holo started moving and stopped here! Chewie came back to get us, and now here were are only to find you with him!”

 

“Is this why you left?” asked Poe. BB8 chirped something and Poe nudged the droid with the toe of his boot. Rose was standing off to the side, her arms folded.

 

“What do you mean, _is this why I left?”_ asked Rey, stung. “I left because he could find me, and look, he found me! Big surprise.”

 

“So let’s go!” said Finn, gesturing for Rey to come to them. “We’ll blindfold you or something, we’ll figure it out.”

 

“It’s okay, guys,” said Rey. “He brought me here so we could get the Jedi texts.”

 

“You showed him the texts?” asked Finn, actually taking a step back.

 

“Yes!” said Rey, thoroughly annoyed. “Believe it or not he’s seen them before _seeing as he trained to be a Jedi for ten years.”_

 

“Oh. Right,” said Finn.

 

“Whatever,” said Poe. “Rey, slap some cuffs on him and he can come along too. We’ll have a trial and the war will be over. We’ll have won.”

 

For a moment Rey looked up at the sky. Was this really all her friends thought? Kill Kylo Ren and all the bad stuff stops?

 

“It’s not that simple,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “There are other leaders in the First Order who will just take his place. We have to dismantle the systems that are in place.”

 

“Great,” said Poe. He pointed to Kylo. “He can tell us how to get onto the ship and how to fuck things up for ol’ General Hux.”

 

“No!” Rey yelled. She wanted to stamp her feet, but that would not help her cause. Kylo was apparently just going to stand beside her and loom, so she was left dealing with this herself.

 

“Enough people have died in the war,” she said. “All the people on D’Qar, and Starkiller, and our friends- no more death. No executions, no blowing up ships. It ends here.”

 

Poe just stared at Rey with his mouth open. “He killed billions of people!” he finally shouted. “All those lives just _gone_ and you want to save him?”

 

“We killed everyone on Starkiller!” said Rey. Had everyone forgotten? “All those people, a _million_ people, and they’re just as dead!”

 

“They were-” said Poe, but Rey cut him off.

 

“They were what, Poe, bad guys? Is that what you were going to say? Because so was Finn. How many more of them could there have been? And how many of them had a choice? We all know how the Stormtroopers were taken and trained. They were victims of this stupid war, too.”

 

“So what do you want to do?” asked Poe’s pilot. “Just say all sins are forgiven and crimes don’t matter anymore?”

 

Rey was getting ready to snap at the man- his name was Dovid and he’d been sullen since the battle here on Crait- when Kylo broke his silence.

 

“It’s called amnesty,” he said. “It’s from an old word that literally means ‘to forget’. And yes- it means that we say there has been enough death.”

 

“But billion-”

 

“Yes!” yelled Rey, entirely losing her temper. “Yes, _billions of people have already died_ fighting this stupid, idiotic war! How many more should we send to join them? Don’t any of you want to go home? To live a life other than this?”

 

Everyone stood quietly, their eyes averted from Rey.

 

“This isn’t going to be easy,” she said, slightly more calmly. “And it won’t happen overnight, but it will never happen- peace will _never_ happen- until we at least try. I’m not being mind controlled, I’m not sick, I haven’t forgotten what has happened. I just want this to end.”

 

Poe nodded. “Okay- okay.  I’m with you, Rey. What do we do first?”

 

Rey glanced at Kylo beside her and then looked back to the tiny group of rebels. “We visit with the First Order.”

~~~

“I don’t think he should be here,” said Finn, glancing at Kylo. Chairs and a table had been dragged out of the Falcon and set up in the no-man’s land between the two ships. It made for an odd look- the sleek First Order shuttle, the mish-mash of folding chairs and packing crates and insulated coolers, and then the Millenium Falcon, a veteran of humanity’s impulses and now as scruffy as Han had once been accused of looking.

 

“You know so much about the leadership of the First Order?” asked Kylo, one eyebrow raised.

 

Finn ignored him. “He could be feeding all of this back to Hux.”

 

“I don’t think he is,” said Rey calmly.  “And if we’re going to work out some sort of cease-fire, we’ll need his help.

 

They argued until the sun set and the ground reflected the light of Chewie’s camp lanterns. “I need a minute,” said Rey. She pushed herself out of her sagging chair and walked off into the pool of darkness beyond the ships.

 

If Jakku had been flat it would have looked like this at night. The grains of salt caught the light just the like mica flakes in the desert sand and they turned the world into a glittering panorama of land and sky.

 

“You were right.”

 

Kylo’s voice was low and quiet, a velvet whisper in the still air. “I do wish I’d made a plan with you before your friends showed up.”

 

“They probably think you followed me out here to kill me,” said Rey.

 

“Probably.”

 

He was standing against his ship in the darkest part of the shadows.

 

“What do you want?” Rey whispered. So far he’d answered all of their questions about the First Order but he’d declined the opportunity to discuss the formation and running of a government.

 

“You,” he said simply.

 

Rey swallowed hard. Twice he’d asked her to join him- once as his student, once as his equal. Now he was offering her himself, and this time she didn’t think she’d be able to decline.

 

“You don’t have to turn- that’s the point, that’s what Luke and the Force and- and everything had been trying to tell us. You don’t have to choose one side or the other. We just have to work together, and I’m trying, Rey. I am.”

 

“I know,” she whispered. She couldn’t say anything- she couldn’t say that she wanted a future with him; that she wanted stability and morning caf and so many days that she couldn’t ever count them all (a memory of silver tick marks on a pewter wall that stretched from her into infinity). She couldn’t have that- _they_ couldn’t have that, not yet.

 

She couldn’t tell him no and she couldn’t tell him yes so she moved to him and tugged his face down to hers. His lips were soft; the only surviving softness after a life steeped in brutality. She stood on her toes and kissed him, gently at first, but then with all the desperation and longing and fear that had been hiding inside her and screaming to get out.

 

Kylo’s hands slowly found her waist and the base of her skull. He wasn’t wearing his gloves; he hadn’t since that first day on Naboo, and they were heavy and warm against her.

 

“Kylo,” she whispered, and those two simple syllables carried twenty years of  heartbreak.

 

She hadn’t cried in the desert, not after she’d been old enough to scavenge on her own. She didn’t have a reason to cry; after all, weren’t her parents going to return to her? They’d promised.

 

She hadn’t cried in the interrogation room. Fear hadn’t left room for tears. She hadn’t cried on Naboo when Kylo had told her that she’d sealed herself off from the Force.

 

Rey’s life had been marked by deprivation, and tears were on that list.

 

Finally she did cry, she cried until the kiss tasted of salt and her agony splashed into the ground to mingle with the remains of an ocean gone dry.

 

“You offered to teach me, you offered me answers,” she whispered into the hollow of his jaw where she’d hidden her face. “And I said no.”

 

“And then you offered me power, you offered me freedom and I said no, I couldn’t do that- I couldn’t give in.”

 

She took a deep breath and pressed kisses along the sharp angle of his jaw and chin. “Now-” she choked on a swallowed sob- “Now you offer me yourself and Ben-”

 

His eyes were calm and dark and she focused on that, borrowed his strength- “I don’t think I can say no.”

 

He spun them then so that it was her back that was pressed against the smooth steel hull of his ship. His hands and mouth were everywhere and through the bond she could feel his triumph.

 

“Ben- we have to back to the others,” she whispered as his lips cruised over her collarbone.

 

He growled, actually _growled,_ but took her lips again in one last kiss that was surprisingly gentle.

 

Their… relationship, for want of a better word, had already been defined by several pivotal moments. He’d fallen wounded before her in the snow and she’d seen fear and confusion and _humanity_ on his face and she’d been repulsed.

 

She’d seen him in the hut on Ach-To; she’d watched his face as he’d listened to her story of the cave. She’d touched his hand and had glimpsed a future- she’d seen him as someone who could _understand._

 

On Naboo she’d seen him as a lover.

 

On Rath she’d seen him as an individual, as a man.

 

And now their relationship had shifted again and she wasn’t sure how.

 

“We need to go back,” she said, and this time he stepped back and let her go. Rey swiped her sleeve over her cheeks in an attempt to hide the evidence of her tears from her friends. The last thing they needed was to go after Ben for making her cry.

 

When she got back to the little golden circle of lantern light only Rose remained.

 

“Where are the others?” asked Rey, retaking her seat.

 

“They’ve gone in for bed,” said Rose. She searched Rey’s face but didn’t say anything. “We weren’t sure you would come back.”

 

“I’m sorry,” said Rey. “I’m sorry I lost my temper, but-”

 

“I know,” said Rose quietly. She had Rey had never talked much; Rey had barely had a chance to get to know the remaining resistance members before Leia’s funeral and their flight to Naboo.

 

“You’re right,” Rose said quietly, looking intently at Rey. “You’re right about the war- my sister died for it, most of my family died because of it one way or another. We did kill those people on Starkiller. We killed all of those people who could have been Finn.”

 

The two women sat quietly together, each staring off into the distance.

 

“It’s hard, I think- particularly hard- for Finn and Poe,” Rose said. “The Stormtroopers were conditioned from childhood to respect the leaders of the First Order and to fear them. They are told that the First Order is unbeatable, and at some level that’s hard to shake.”

 

“What about Poe?” asked Rey. She needed to hear this. She needed to know.

 

“Poe was born into the Resistance- his mother was a pilot, too- and when his parents died every adult in the base helped raise him. He was raised on talk of rebellion against the First Order; it’s literally all he’d known.”

 

Rey made a face. Peace talks wouldn’t sit right with someone like Poe. “Thank you for telling me,” she said eventually. “I needed to know.”

 

Rose stood up. “I’m going to bed- you should too. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

 

“Rose-” called Rey. “I’m glad you’re here.”

 

She smiled tentatively at the other woman, who smiled back. “Me too,” Rose said, and then she was gone into the Falcon.

 

Rey slouched more deeply into her chair and looked up at the stars. She didn’t know what to do, but she felt ...close. This felt right. Alone in the pool of light Rey fell asleep between Kylo Ren’s ship and the remains of the Resistance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how, but this three chapter story developed a PLOT. Hopefully you are all still enjoying this, because I am!
> 
> I'd like to thank everyone for their support. It has been so much fun to hear everyone's opinions about where they think this should go/see what they think of the characters. THANK YOU! You guys are the best.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone agrees on a plan.

“Hux won’t come to a peace talk,” said Kylo. “If he thinks you’re gathered peacefully he’ll blow up the whole town without a second thought.”

 

“Even if you’re there?” asked Rose. 

 

“Especially if I’m there,” said Kylo. 

 

Chewie barked out a laugh.

 

The First Order had retreated to a planet in one of the middle systems where the Stormtroopers were originally trained. They weren’t on a ship, so this time there wasn’t anything for pilots to blow up. The Resistance was too small to lay siege to the First Order base, and it was unlikely that they’d be able to get in disguised as Stormtroopers… again. 

 

“I don’t know guys,” said Poe, scowling. “I don’t see how this is going to happen.”

 

The group fell silent. 

 

“I have an idea,” said Kylo slowly. “But you’re going to have to trust me.”

 

Poe’s scowl deepened.

 

“Yeah? What’s your great idea Supreme Leader?” drawled Finn. 

 

“We aren’t going to get into the base with stealth,” said Kylo. “So we have to just march in.”

 

Finn opened his mouth to shoot down Kylo’s suggestion but Kylo plunged on. “Listen- I  _ am  _ still the Supreme Leader. I’ve been gone less than a week. If I bring you all in with my knights claiming you’re my prisoners… they wouldn’t have any reason not to believe me.”

 

“Escorting the prisoner,” said Poe, nodding slowly. “That probably would get us in, but then what? We’re still outnumbered at least fifty to one.”

 

“Only if you include the ‘troopers,” said Kylo. “Hux’s inner circle is smaller. If I get you into the tactical center it’ll be a fair fight.”

 

“What’s going to stop ‘troopers from coming in too?” asked Finn, willing to chase down every flaw in this plan. 

 

“I am,” said Kylo simply. “I’ll seal off the door.”

 

None of them doubted that he could. 

 

“So… just to reiterate this plan,” said Poe, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. “You’re going to leave, get your knights from wherever they are, and then come back. We’ll be taken aboard as prisoners, marched through the base and into the inner sanctum where we’ll kill all the people at the top. Right?”

 

“Yes,” said Kylo. 

 

BB-8 whistled something. 

 

“Yeah, what’s going to stop your knights from just killing us?” asked Poe. 

 

“Don’t say it-” Finn held up a hand. “You are.”

 

Kylo nodded again. “I’ve trained with the knights for years. They don’t answer to the First Order, they answer to me. We’re our own… unit.”

 

Rey got the impression he’d almost said  _ family.  _

 

“Does anyone have a better idea?” she asked. 

 

Everyone, including Chewie and BB-8, mumbled  _ no.  _

 

“Then I think we have a plan.”

 

There was a long pause; everyone avoided the gazes of the others. 

 

Surprisingly it was Poe who broke the tension. He stood and extended his hand to Kylo. “Come back safe,” he said. 

 

Slowly, his face devoid of emotion, Kylo shook the other man’s hand. “Thank you,” he said. 

 

The group rose and scattered. Poe announced that he was going to inventory their weapons, Finn and Rose wandered off together, and Chewie grumbled about being hungry. 

 

“My pack is still on the shuttle, let me grab it before you leave,” said Rey to Kylo. They walked together into the cool gloom of the ship. 

 

Rey gathered the Jedi texts and her packs from the little dinette area. It had only been a day since the Millenium Falcon had landed on the planet, but Rey was half-surprised to find everything where she’d left it. It felt like everything had changed. 

 

“I have something for you,” said Kylo. He was standing in the doorway with a small wooden box. 

 

“Another present?” asked Rey, surprised. He may have repeatedly kidnapped her, but he was the only one who came with presents. She was starting to feel guilty about it.

 

“Kind of,” said Kylo. He set the box on the tabletop and lifted the lid. Inside was a jumble of little sockets and metallic pieces. At first glance it looked like junk, but-

 

“Oh,” Rey gasped, reaching up to touch the crystal that hung around her neck. It had been there since she’d left Crait the first time. The remains of Anakin’s saber were stuffed in the bottom of her bag. 

 

“You’ve got everything you need,” he said, gently brushing hip lips over hers. 

 

Rey picked up the box and walked to the ramp. “Be careful Ben.”

 

Kylo looked at her for a heartbeat too long, his dark eyes warm. “I’ll be careful, don’t worry. I’ll come back for you, sweetheart.”

 

It was  _ him.  _ Rey nearly dropped the box of saber parts. 

 

_ It was him.  _

 

For years- for as long as Rey could remember- she’d been haunted by that voice, that phrase. 

 

Memory filled Rey, and with it came the Force. It was a baptism, a benediction, a lost lover returning from war. Rey staggered and dropped to one knee, lost in the power and memories-

 

_ Rey, four years old, sitting outside Unkar Plutt’s hut. Her parent’s had just left and the anathema of the stars was reflected in the silvery tear tracks on her cheeks. “I’ll come back for you sweetheart,” whispered a voice on the breeze. Rey stopped crying. _

 

_ Rey, older now, sitting out in front of the AT-AT she’d called home. The sun was setting in a bleeding red sky. As the breeze curled around her sand rolled down the dune. “I’ll come back for you sweetheart,” hissed the gently sliding sand. _

 

_ Rey, looking as she did now, standing in front of a beautiful older women. “Are you sure you won’t come with us?” asked the woman, gesturing to an expensive private cruiser. Rey looked at the ship with longing. “I’ll come back for you sweetheart,”  _ that voice  _ echoed in her ear.  _

 

_ “I can’t,” said Rey, her heart breaking. _

 

The memories faded. Kylo was kneeling in front of her. 

 

“Did you see...?” asked Rey when she came back into herself. She felt ...alive, buzzing in a way that she never had before. She could feel _ everything _ : she was here and yet she was in the tinkling crystal foxes and her friends and every system of every star. She was hyper aware of the man in front of her; she could almost hear his heartbeat. 

 

Kylo- Ben- swallowed hard. “Yes.”

 

Rey closed her eyes and reveled in the Force, in a feeling of wholeness she’d never had before. “It was you, it was always you,” she said, and this time it was comforting and correct and everything she’d never realized that she already knew. 

 

“You’re incandescent,” Kylo said, his voice awed. “I’ve never felt anything like that… it was like a shockwave.”

 

Rey pushed her pack off her shoulders and threw herself into Kylo’s lap. She was alive, she was one with the Force, and now she needed to be one with Ben Solo.

 

Kylo kissed her with equal fervor. His fingers were in her hair and gripping her waist hard enough to bruise. He turned away from her mouth to rest his forehead on her shoulder when Rey began tugging at his clothes. 

 

“We can’t, Rey. I have to go.”

 

Rey sighed and splayed her hands flat on his chest. She wanted to  _ see  _ it. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

 

They separated awkwardly. Rey shouldered her pack and picked up the box of saber parts Kylo had given her. He took her face between her palms and kissed her gently. 

 

“I will come back. I  _ will. _ ” 

 

Rey smiled. “I know,” she said, and for the very first time she meant it. 

~~~

Rey watched Kylo’s shuttle exit the atmosphere with the rest of the Resistance. 

 

“Do you think he’ll come back?” asked Dovid, who’d refused to come out of the Falcon until Kylo had gone. 

 

Chewie roared before Rey could turn on the pilot. 

 

“Yes, you’re right Chewie, he will come back.”

 

Rey spent the rest of the afternoon pouring over the Jedi text that mentioned saber construction. Much of it was about trusting the Force and letting your instincts guide you. She did read about purifying your crystal and asking it to channel the Force through you, that was interesting. She wondered if that’s how Kylo’s saber had become so unstable- maybe he’d channeled too much Force.

 

By evening Rey felt that she was as ready as she would get. She’d never had any training, and despite what the book said about spending three days in meditation she didn’t have the time. She’d never even spent a whole day training for this; why should her saber construction be any different from the rest of her slapdash journey?

 

She picked up the box of parts and walked a little ways away from the Falcon. The sky was brilliant pink and lavender and orange when she sat down cross legged on the salt flat and unpacked the box Kylo had given her. She laid the parts out in neat rows- sockets, guards, grips, screws- until the box was empty. Finally she took the crystal off the the leather strip she’d tied around it. 

 

The crystal was warm in her hand, and gently so. There had only been one line in the Jedi text about reusing a kyber crystal; the custom was to bury or burn a saber with its fallen maker. The text had said:  _ There have been few occurrences of a crystal’s loyalty changing during times of great upheaval in the Force.  _

 

She didn’t know if this crystal was loyal to her or not, but it felt… right. She would use the crystal of Anakin Skywalker to fight alongside his grandson, light and dark united. 

 

Rey closed her eyes and touched each part with the tip of her finger. Some whispered to her of things to come, and these she gently lifted into the air with the Force. She could see her saber now, she could see it as it would be, and the desert air barely stirred as pieces began to quietly click together. 

 

At last she felt the crystal leave her knee and Rey focused on it, on it’s gentle hum of energy. She thought of her friends, of Kylo, of Leia and Han and all who had come before her. 

 

The light from the crystal was burning through her eyelids now, making her vision red, and Rey thought of hope fulfilled. Here was her family, here was her purpose, and here was her fate.

 

The crystal’s light was covered by the saber’s components as the last few pieces snicked into place. 

 

Rey opened her eyes. 

 

Before her, turning gently in the air, was her saber. The grip was longer than Anakin's had been, and the parts were a blue-grey gunmetal color. It felt at home in her hand when she grasped it, an extension of herself.

 

Rey stood and thumbed the saber on. 

 

The beam, when it came, was white. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I really love this chapter. It's the shortest in the story but it's also my favorite. It does look like this story will be completed with a total of nine chapters, so there isn't much more to go. I'd like to thank all the people who have been reading and commenting along so far. It's been wonderful to hear your takes on the story and characters! 
> 
> I hope you're having a wonderful day!
> 
> <3 Chris


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory fight scene!

The Resistance members were quiet as they waited for Kylo to return.

 

“Should we stop and get the others?” asked Poe. “Won’t it look suspicious if it’s just us that Ren supposedly caught?”

 

They’d argued again, but the consensus was that the others hadn’t agreed to be ‘captured’ in the first place, so it wasn’t fair to ask them to do this. Besides- what if the plan didn’t work? Someone had to remain.

 

The shuttle returned before mid-morning. After landing on the scuffed red and white ground the hatch opened and seven unmasked figures disembarked, led by Kylo Ren. Rey felt Finn stiffen beside her. 

 

“Knights, meet the Resistance. Resistance, meet the knights.”

 

One of the black clad figures stepped forward. “Lord Ren explained the plan on the way over,” he said. “But before we agree, we have some questions.”

 

Poe stepped forward. “Alright. What do you need to know?

 

The knight nodded to Poe. “What will be the fate of the knights if we survive and the coup is successful?”

 

Poe glanced at Finn and then back to the blonde knight. “What would you choose to do? We don’t want to make anyone work for us if they don’t want to.”

 

“We’re… enforcers without families. We know each other, we work as a unit with each other. Perhaps our services could be of use to you?”

 

Poe shrugged uncomfortably. “We can’t know, but we have decided on a policy of-” he glanced at Kylo, “-amnesty.”

 

The knight looked at his compatriots, who nodded at him. “Good enough for us,” he said, and he thrust his silvery looking pike into the ground in front of his feet. 

~~~

The flight to the central planet hosting the First Order was quiet. Finn sat tensely by the window with Rose holding his hand. Poe was talking quietly with the spokesknight, and Kylo Ren sat with Rey at the controls. She could feel the heat coming off him here in the coldness of space and she wanted to touch him, to remind herself that she was real, that he was real, that their time together hadn’t been the desperate dreaming of a lonely girl. 

 

Kylo set the shuttle on autopilot as they approached the planet’s atmosphere. “We need this to look like you were truly captured,” he said to the group. “Pass over your weapons to a knight. They’ll be sure you have them back when it counts.” 

 

Finn was the last to pass over his blaster. He was pale but resolute, no longer wishing to leave as he had at Maz’s cantina.  

 

The base was made of long, low buildings connected by paved paths and landing strips. Kylo brought the shuttle to rest directly in front of the largest of the buildings. He released the hatch and wrapped a gloved hand around Rey’s bicep. She handed him her saber and he looked at it for a second before tucking it into his belt. “Thank you,” she said, and he looked down at her. Rey wondered if he was remembering her thanking him on Rath, too. 

 

Kylo began to walk down the ramp and Rey _ felt  _ him become Kylo Ren. He was colder, and that normal high frequency energy that radiated off him became muted. His presence on the Force darkened and calmed, a deep pool that reflected no light. 

 

Without a word being spoken the knights formed a loose semi circle around the Resistance members and walked them into the building. A few ‘troopers stopped to watch at the group walked by, but with Supreme Leader Ren at the head of the crowd no one tried to stop them. 

 

Within moments they’d walked down a long, sterile looking hallway and into a large room with control panels and holo screens on three of the walls. General Hux was slouched in a leather chair at the center of the room, a steaming cup of something in his hand. 

 

“I believe you’re in my chair, Hux,” drawled Kylo. 

 

Hux didn’t get up. 

 

“Supreme Leader,” said Hux, flushing. “You left without a word, and we weren’t sure…when you’d return. I’ve been running our Order in your stead.”

 

The whole room could hear Hux’s unspoken  _ if.  _

 

“As you can see, my mission was successful,” said Kylo, gesturing to Rey and company. “I couldn’t risk  _ anyone  _ catching wind of my plan.”

 

“Why are they here, Supreme Leader?” asked Hux, rising and looking over the captives. “They should be in interrogation cells.”

 

“You don’t give the orders here, Hux,” said Kylo. “We’re here because we have a proposition for you: stop the war, and live.”

 

Hux was slowly turning red. “Stop the war? We’ve won the war,  _ this _ -” he spat the word, “-is all that remains of the Resistance! Why should we cease when this is the end?”

 

“Because if you don’t, you’ll die.” 

 

Kylo tossed Rey her saber and ignited his own. Around the room weapons were drawn.

 

“You’re outnumbered,” sneered Hux. “And you’ll never make it out of here alive.”

 

“Sir, the doors won’t open,” said one of the techs. 

 

Hux glanced from the tech back to Kylo, who winked. “Looks like it’s just us.”

 

Hux pulled a dagger from an arm sheath and a blaster from his hip. “Looks like it,  _ Ben.”  _

 

Nobody knew who moved first. One moment the room crackled with  _ potential,  _ with weapons drawn and breaths held, and the next it was movement and smoking blasters and the moans of the wounded. Once more Kylo and Rey found themselves back to back, their sabers humming a requiem. One guard after another was cut down, and even the comm techs were joining in the fray. 

 

Poe and Finn were back to back on the other side of the room, blasters firing, and the knights were silent dark swirls of crackling, electric death. Kylo felt Rey jolt and pain rippled through their connection. He spun them so that he faced the greater part of the room and there was Chewbacca, heavy blaster in his grip, and another guard was rushing Kylo. 

 

The room was burning now, smoke darkening the air, and still the battle raged. One of the knights had fallen, Hux had slunk off somewhere, and everyone fought out of desperation to live; ideals were lost on the battlefield. 

 

There was a roar and Kylo turned to see Chewie fall in front of him, a blaster wound in his chest. The bolt had likely been meant for Kylo, and he knelt by the Wookie as rage and grief washed through him. Rey fought as ferociously as ever, and when Kylo rose it was like the tide: global, powerful, cold and inexorable. Enemies fell before him and in the quiet center of himself Kylo thought that this was what he’d been seeking all along, this clear and calculating purpose, steel cold and razor sharp. 

 

Moments later the fight was over. A knight was dead, Chewie was gone, and only a few of the First Order officers were left alive. Hux’s body was draped over a control panel, his own knife in his chest. Kylo unceremoniously shoved the corpse onto the floor and sat at the controls. 

 

“All troopers, report to the parade grounds. All troopers, report to parade grounds, Code 7663.”

 

Kylo stood and clipped his saber to his belt. “Now we start the hard part.”

 

The knights joined him, clearly more accustomed to this life than the Resistance.

 

“I thought that was the hard part,” said Poe, but Kylo ignored him. 

 

“FN- Finn,” he said. “You left- you defied your conditioning and joined the Resistance. You need to speak to those who remain.”

 

Finn nodded. He had a long cut down one arm, and Rose was leaning against him. Her hair was singed and she was holding her wrist at an odd angle but they both looked resolute. 

 

“You’ll need to say something too,” he said to Poe. Rey just stood off to the side watching this, her brain numb and body buzzing. 

 

“Rey-” she looked up at Kylo, glassy eyed. “Rey- we need to go. Come on.”

 

She followed him out, her saber still hanging loosely in her hand. 

 

They walked past the ranks and rows of Stormtroopers on the parade grounds. There was a low stage at one end of the field. The straggling members of the Resistance climbed onto it. 

 

“There has been a coup,” called Kylo loudly. None of the ‘troopers moved. “Hux is not in charge. The Resistance is no longer our enemy.”

 

Finn stepped forward. “I was one of you- I trained with you and lived with you. We were told that nothing could beat the First Order, that we were a part of the unstoppable machine. It seemed so true, but it isn’t. I have a name and friends. I can choose what I want to do, and when. The war is over, and you have a choice. You can find your families again, if you want. If not we will help you find a job and a place in a new order, a better one.”

 

It was Poe’s turn next. “We don’t know what’s going to happen next, but we want you to be a part of it. We’re done fighting, and we hope you are as well.”

 

The spell- or whatever it was- broke. The Stormtroopers broke off into groups, some talking among themselves, others marching back to their barracks. Here and there, however, a few of them had removed the white plastique helmets that marked them as nameless, faceless cogs in a machine. They were squinting up at the sky or looking with curiosity over at Finn. 

 

“What happens now?” whispered Rey. It seemed so strange that the sun was shining, that the fight was over, that seemingly nothing had changed though everything had.

 

Kylo took her hand in his, the leather of his glove warm and soft. 

 

“Politics,” he sighed. 

~~~

It was politics, and it didn’t happen quickly. A spokes-group of former Stormtroopers had been elected, at they sat at the table with the veterans of the Resistance. The Resistance wanted to reinstate the Galactic Senate, but it was pointed out to them (loudly and multiple times) that the Senate had already fallen twice and creating it for a third time would be a folly borne out of willful stupidity. 

 

The ‘troopers and the Knights of Ren argued for an elected triumvirate, but Poe and Rose argued that it would be too easy for the corrupt and rich to take advantage of that system. 

 

In the end, weeks after the battle, a settlement was reached. A smaller Senate would be elected. It would be comprised of representatives from each system, not each planet, and it would be overseen by an elected triumvirate. Everyone had mandatory term limits, and they had a maximum amount of time allowed for debating. Nobody claimed that it would be a perfect system, but it was new. 

 

Poe, Rose, and the blonde spokesknight were elected to serve on the first triumvirate. Everyone- the knights, Kylo and Rey, the remains of the Resistance,  _ everyone  _ flew to Chandrila to watch them be sworn in. 

 

Kylo and Rey stood side by side and watched at the fledgling government emerged from the ashes of war. They hadn’t talked about their future yet, they were both too busy to cut out time for themselves, but they could feel things shifting between them again. Enemies to lovers to allies- where would their relationship finally settle?

~~~

The night after the swearing in of the triumvirate Kylo snuck into Rey’s room. They were lodged on the top floor of the old Senate building, which had been sealed since the final meeting of the second Senate thirty years ago. Rey wasn’t in her bed; she was perched on the faded cushions of her window seat. 

 

“Ben,” she whispered, and he scooped her up and arranged them both in the little ledge, snuggling her into his lap. 

 

“What should we do?” Rey whispered. “Poe wants us to stay on as advisors. I don’t know anything about running a government. I don’t know what to do.”

 

Kylo kissed her hair. “What do you want to do?”

 

Rey didn’t answer him. She didn’t want to say it out loud. “What do you want to do?” she asked. 

 

Ben was braver than she was. “I want to put you on a ship, fly you back to Rath, and keep you there until we’re tanned all over and I’ve kissed every inch of you.”

 

Rey felt warm- she remembered Naboo, she wanted that too. “But?”

 

Kylo sighed and snugged Rey’s head under his chin. When he spoke his voice was deeper in her ear, rumbling up from his chest. “But… there are kids out there like you and me, kids with the Force and no one to help them.”

 

“You want to build our own Jedi Order?” asked Rey. 

 

“No,” said Ben sharply. “I want… I want to help. I don’t think children should be taken from their parents. They shouldn’t be denied love or anger or ...emotion. But they need help.”

 

“We could help them? Like a school, maybe,” said Rey. 

 

“That’s what I thought,” said Kylo, letting his palm run up and down Rey’s spine. “We could have them stay with us a few months of the year, and then we could return them to their families. 

 

Rey thought of the little boy Ben must have been once; one so powerful and so feared. “Okay,” she said. “I think we should do that.”

 

They sat together in the silvery light of the stars while several floors beneath them a new order for the galaxy was being designed. 

 

“Rey-” said Kylo. “I… I know I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve to be walking free, to be given the chance for redemption. I don’t deserve  _ you,  _ and yet I am such a greedy, awful man.”

 

He took a deep breath and Rey held herself still. 

 

“Rey- please- will you marry me?”

 

“Who’s asking?” asked Rey, feeling her heart break just a little bit more. “Kylo Ren? Or Ben Solo?”

 

He buried his nose in her hair and squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “But I need you, Rey. Whoever I am, I need you.”

 

Rey turned so that she could kiss him, this lost and broken man. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll help you figure it out.”

 

He kissed her, and once more their kiss tasted of salt, healing and elemental. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left! I swear to whatever power is available (Rian Johnson?) that this final chapter is going to take longer to write than the rest of the story in its entirety. It isn't longer; it's just that writing a satisfactory ending is nearly IMPOSSIBLE. UGH. 
> 
> Anyone have an idea of what I should write next? It could be burnout (I've written something like 70k words since Christmas) but I am fresh out of ideas. 
> 
> Seriously, THANK YOU all for reading. This is by far the most popular story I've written, and I really appreciate the support. I've had such fun chatting with you all, and feel free to come say hi on tumblr! I'm lonelyspacebabies.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know what happens. There is really only one thing that can happen here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it took me two weeks to write this ONE CHAPTER. Writing an ending is so much harder than anything else. I hope it's satisfying!

They married the next day on the floor of the Senate building. The space had been cleaned but not yet opened to the public. The windows shone up and up and up over rows of seats, and a small dias had been built on the debate floor where the triumvirate would sit. That’s where Rey and Kylo stood when they made their promises to each other; promises to protect and love and cherish. At the end, in a move that was entirely their own, they exchanged sabers and pressed a kiss to the hilt. They were warriors and they were partners and they were lovers. From this day until their last day they would try to be the balance of the Force. 

 

With Chewie gone the ownership of the Millenium Falcon had changed yet again: it was Ben’s now, and he wanted to reclaim it. After the wedding he and Rey asked Poe to fly them back to Crait one last time and he agreed. 

 

“The galaxy has been at war for thirty years, it can wait one one more day,” he said with a grin. When Rey and Ben were packed (and practically vibrating with a need for privacy) they met Poe and the other Resistance veterans on the airstrip. 

 

“I couldn’t stop them,” he said, spreading his arms wide. 

 

BB-8 chirped something, and Poe looked down. “Hey!”

 

“ _ You _ told them all?” Rey asked the droid.

 

He whistled and she laughed. “I know, and yes- I do like the flower on your antenna. It’s a good look for you.”

 

The crowd surged up the ramp of the shuttle laughing and shoving good-naturedly. Even Ben- Kylo? Who was he now?- was clapped on the back and congratulated.  

 

It was the opposite of their trip away from Crait. Someone had brought ice wine and some kind of malted liquor aboard and it only took about two minutes before the bottles were being passed from hand to hand. 

 

“To the Resistance!” yelled Poe from his pilot’s seat. Finn had poured him half a glass, and Poe had grudgingly agreed to it, although he kept muttering that there wasn’t anything in space to crash into. 

 

“The Resistance!” everyone echoed before drinking. 

 

“To those not here with us,” said Rose, and this time even Kylo (Ben?) paused before taking a long swig. 

 

“To Rey,” said Finn, his trademark grin returning. Then, smoothly and seemingly without hesitation he added, “And Ben, poor Leia’s prodigal son. He’s your problem now, peanut.”

 

Rey laughed and kissed Ben while the rest of the passengers laughed. 

 

Rey was more than giggly by the time they reached Crait. 

 

“Keep in contact, okay?” said Finn, hugging her tightly. 

 

“I will,” she said again. He’d already reminded her twice. 

 

Ben stood slightly hunched with his hands in his pockets as he watched the shuttle fly out of Crait’s atmosphere. Rey was still waving at them, her cheeks flushed, when Kylo turned to her. 

 

“Shall we go?” he asked her. He wondered if she’d ever been drunk before. 

 

“Yes,” she said, almost shyly slipping her hand into his. He gave her a squeeze before picking her up and carrying her aboard the Falcon. He paused for a heartbeat, then two there on the bridge. It still smelled like his childhood; like overheating control panels and dust and… home. He set her down and she leaned against him for a moment, confused. 

 

“Ben?”

 

She was looking up at him, those big hazel eyes wide. 

 

“I haven’t been here since…” he trailed away and walked to the pilot’s seat. There hung the dice, the ones that had won his reckless father this ship. He’d seen them- hallucinated them?- on Crait. 

 

“Are you okay?” Rey asked from behind him. 

 

Ben sat down in the seat that had been his father’s for so, so long. 

 

“Yeah,” he said, running his hands over the wheel. “I am.”

~~~

 

He glanced over at Rey as they traveled through hyperspace. She’d fallen asleep curled in the copilot’s seat, her legs swung over the chair’s arm, and Kylo smiled at her. She looked so young and… innocent when she slept, nothing like the stalking, furious warrior who had scarred him in the snow. 

 

He glanced back out the stars whizzing by in a blur. It was odd- his past and present kept converging, and only looking at Rey seemed to calm the anxious buzzing inside him. 

 

The next time he glanced over at her she was awake. Her eyes were heavy and sleep clouded and the look she was giving him was soft and content, like she’d be happy to just look at him for hours. That look made his stomach clench- how could all this sweetness be for  _ him? _

 

“Hey,” he said quietly. “We’re almost to Rath.”

 

“Okay,” she said, and she stood and stretched, her gold-touched skin moving over lean muscles. Rey moved into the little ‘fresher and he could hear water running as he landed the ship. 

 

When Rey walked out of the ‘fresher Ben the ship off and Ben was waiting for her by the open hatch. Wordlessly she took his hand and walked down into the sand of the little pink island.  

 

She’d expected their coupling to be frantic after the battle and the tension and wedding. It wasn’t. They wandered quietly through the warm shallows and gently rolling dunes of the little island, his hand warm around hers. 

 

“Don’t you want to learn to swim?” Ben asked Rey when she refused to go into water deeper than her waist. 

 

“Maybe,” said Rey, eyeing the waves. 

 

Ben decided not to push it. It was their first night together and he had other things he’d rather be doing. They returned to the pile of clothes on the sand; it had been enough of a fight to get Rey out of her clothes. He’d had to assure her that nobody on the other islands was close enough to see them, and besides, they’d get in the water on the opposite side of the Falcon. It would be fine. 

 

Ben spread his shirt out and they sat on it, the pinkish purple rays of the setting sun drying their bodies. 

 

“Thank you for bringing me back here,” she said. 

 

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, cupping her face and turning her so that he could give her a kiss. 

 

She sighed into his mouth and Ben loved it- he wanted to consume her, to claim her, to run away and never worry about the kriffing galaxy again. They kissed lazily as the stars came out around them and the waves lapped against the shore. 

 

They ended up sprawled out on Ben’s shirt, Rey’s breasts pressed to his chest. 

 

“When we were on Naboo,” he said, nibbling his way down her neck, “I looked at you sprawled on that bed and I wanted to kiss you  _ everywhere.  _ You’ve got the prettiest skin, like after all those years in the desert it sucked a little bit of the sun inside. I wanted to taste it then, but- well. We were working on other things.”

 

Rey laughed and Kylo could feel the vibrations through his lips and ke pressed a kiss to the top curve of her breast. 

 

“Now, though, I’ve got you forever, and forever still may not be enough time.” 

 

Rey sighed as he worried a nipple with his lips, and she stretched seemingly bonelessly, her back arching up into his mouth. 

 

Ben kissed the bumps of her ribs, the slope of her shoulder, the hollow of her collarbones and the planes of her belly. He nosed into the dark spaces in the hollows of her knees and always seemed to return to her lips or breasts. She watched him do this with half closed eyes, her tawny irises nearly consumed with lust-blown pupils. 

 

When he pressed a kiss to the jut of one hip bone she scooched impatiently- Rey remembered Naboo too, and she was eager to experience his mouth once more. 

 

“You haven’t said it yet,” said Ben, nibbling along the flare of that hip. “I won’t go there until you say it.”

 

“Say what?” asked Rey, looking down at Ben who was nestled comfortably between her legs. 

 

“You know what,” he said, his dark gaze locking with hers. 

 

If he hadn’t spent the last millenia kissing her and turning Rey’s body and brains to jelly she might have snapped at him and asked, “ _ And why do I have to say it first? You’re the one who asked me to marry you!” _

 

But Rey’s brain was jelly, so instead she looked at him seriously and said, “Ben, I love you, I married you, now please-”

 

He already had. She sighed at that fist broad swipe of his tongue soothed over her clit, and he set up a rhythm of sucks and flicks one of her hands burrowed its way back into his damnably silky hair and the other fisted in the cool sand. 

 

He was too good at this, and already he seemed to have a better understanding of her body than she did. It seemed like he was drawing this out, playing with her, drowning her in sensation until she surfaced as another new version of herself- the married version of herself.

 

Rey could feel her orgasm building and surrendered herself to it when it came. She could smell the ocean and Ben and her own arousal, and when Ben wiped his face on his arm she wasn’t embarrassed, she was triumphant.

 

He carried her back to the ship. She told him that she wanted to take care of him, to try what he’d done to her, and even though he’d swallowed hard at the offer he still said that they’d have plenty of time tomorrow. 

 

They spent the night in Ben’s old room. Rey hadn’t know it was Ben’s when she was aboard the Falcon before, but now the boxes of pens and scrap parts and physical books made more sense. 

 

The bed was narrow but soft and they fit into it, mostly. Ben’s feet hung over the edge of the bed, but they likely had done that for a very long time. Rey slept wedged between the smooth wall of the Falcon and Ben’s chest, warm and safe. 

 

There was no learning curve to this physical intimacy. There were no awkward starts in the night as one tried to remember who the other was; there were no accidentally thrown elbows or knees. They fit together as though they’d been together for years, as though they’d been formed for this by a humorless, distant god. 

 

When Ben woke Rey was gone and the pillow beside him was cool. For the first time in years he’d slept all the way through the night, and he experienced that peculiarly disorienting feeling of not knowing where- or when- he was. He was… on the Falcon again, but with Rey; with his  _ wife.  _

 

He rose and tugged a shirt on over his chest. The ship was cool, and when he walked out into the main space behind the cockpit he could see why. It was raining; little trails of water were running down the windscreen and he could hear it falling on the outer shell of the ship. 

 

Rey had the ramp open and she was sitting on it, listening to the rain hitting the ship’s wing above her head. She was humming something, and the air smelled of caf and fresh beginnings. 

 

“Morning,” he said, sitting down next to her. “So much for a tropical paradise.”

 

Rey was damp; she’d probably been playing in the rain. Kylo remembered their Force connection from when she was on Ach-to. He remembered the split second of wonder and joy on her face before she’d noticed his presence; before she’d begin to hiss and spit like the little desert cat she was. 

 

“It’s still a paradise,” said Rey. “It’s wonderful.” She crawled into his lap and sat facing him, her knees on either side of his thighs. Ben noticed that she hadn’t yet bound her breasts for the day, and the tawny skin of her nipples was visible through the damp fabric of her tunic. 

 

He swallowed, throat suddenly dry. 

 

Rey was looking at him, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Don’t you like the rain?” she asked, running her hand over his chest, using those little claws of hers to toy with a nipple. 

 

“It’s definitely growing on me,” he said. 

 

Rey leaned back to tug off her shirt, putting her high, soft breasts right at mouth level. Ben couldn’t avoid an invitation like that and he licked one soft little mound before sucking it between his lips. Rey’s fingers sank into his hair and once more Ben remembered Naboo. They had been tied together through the Force for their entire lives, but it was on Naboo that he remembered that he was a person, a man, a human who wanted to be touched. He may not have taken the name Ben back until yesterday, but it was on Naboo that Ben began to reform. 

 

One of Rey’s hands slid down his stomach to tug at at his pants. She wasn’t going to make any progress there, not at this angle with Ben bent over her, but that was okay. He wanted to take the time to savor her. 

 

Ben switched to her other breast and Rey started tugging more firmly at his hair, as ready to rush into this as she was everything else. His partner needed to learn patience, but they could save that for another time. 

 

“Ben…” she whined, and he lifted his head to kiss her gently on the lips. 

 

“Rey!” he teased back, sucking a bruise over her collarbone. 

 

“Ben, I want-”

 

“Yes?”

 

Rey looked away when she caught him peeking up at her through his eyelashes. 

 

“I want to fuck you,” she muttered, blushing furiously. 

 

“Then what are you waiting for?” he asked, running a palm up and down the planes of her back. 

 

Rey wiggled away, sat on her butt, and wiggled out of her leggings, all the while watching as Kylo stripped. She was back in his lap before he had his balance again, and he cupped her ass to steady them both. She was up on her knees and Ben pressed kisses to the planes of her belly as he slid two fingers into her cunny. She was already damp and hot, and Ben wondered if he’d ever, over a thousand lifetimes, get used to the heat and the want. 

 

When he circled over her clit she jolted and- maker be praised- sant her fingers back into his hair. 

 

“How did the Jedi ever think this was wrong,” he muttered into the tawny skin over her ribs. “How did they think this was weak?”

 

Rey didn’t say anything; her hips began to rock into his fingers. Ben watched the skin over her neck and chest flush pink. She slid a hand out of his hair, down his chest and stomach, and stopped with her fingers around his prick. 

 

“Now-” she said, rising up and looking at him with a mix of caution and imperiousness. She sank down onto him slowly, subsuming his want with her own. They both gasped at the sensation; the fullness and want and wholeness that came with joining. It was still raining, the water pattering onto the wing over their heads. This was right somehow, this was a baptism of water and Rey. If this was purification, if this was forgiveness he’d take it a thousand times over. 

 

With her eyes locked onto his, Rey began to rock against him. It was hesitant at first, the moves jolted and mechanical, but as Ben’s calloused hands settled onto her hips they began to move in time and slowly they slid into a rhythm that was as old as time itself. He thought he could almost see it in her eyes, this instinctual mating and loving that lurked in every man and woman alike. 

 

“Ben- I-” the words were panted and uneven, and when it became apparent that no further words would come she lowered her head and pressed her lips to his. 

 

Ben’s mouth was  _ sin.  _ It had been one of the first things she’d noticed about him back on the Finalizer after he’d killed his father and strapper her to an interrogation bench. He’d removed his helmet and there was his face, so angular and sharp. His lips had looked so soft, a gentle incongruity among the angles and planes of the rest. 

 

Rey tried to pour all of her confusion and love and happiness into that kiss. She hoped that Ben knew that she loved him, that she wanted him, that she would fight beside him and for him. That he wasn’t alone, that he wouldn’t be again. 

 

When she broke away for a breath she rested her forehead on his. She was too close to see him clearly but she could feel him- his breath running hot and quick over her skin, his hands tight on her hips, his cock in her cunt.

 

She whined for  _ something.  _ She didn’t know what she needed but she wanted something more and needed it  _ now.  _

 

Ben, bless him, slid two fingers down over her clit. He kept moving, and for a second Rey could feel that he was touching the place where they were joined, where she was stretched tightly around him, and that tiny, questing touch was suddenly the most intimately erotic thing she could imagine. 

 

Once Ben began to circle that wonderful, sensitive little spot again it didn’t take long before Rey could feel the muscles in her stomach jumping and her orgasm rushing at her headlong.

 

“Ben-” she warned, trying to tell him, but he seemed to know already. 

 

“Come on sweetheart, I love you, come for me,” he said through gritted teeth.

 

She came, her hips losing their rhythm and her lungs losing their breath. Her head slid onto Ben’s shoulder, and she could feel his hands vice-tight on her hips. He was thrusting into her hard now, his cock moving into her sodden, swollen flesh, and Rey liked the feeling, liked feeling feminine and soft and well-fucked. 

 

After Ben came with a groan they sat together perfectly still, the mist from the rain settling onto their overheated skin. He was still inside her, but Rey could feel him softening as their heartbeats slowed and their breaths came more easily. 

 

“Come on,” he said after a long moment, smacking Rey’s ass. She jolted and his softened cock slid out of her, dribbling his come. Ben held his shirt to her cunny and tidied her up gently. Rey was blushing furiously but she didn’t stop him- there was something terrifying and exhilarating about being cared for. 

 

After they were both reasonably come-free they lay side by by side on the ramp of the Falcon, her head pillowed on his arm. The misting rain felt good against their skin, and the gentle patter was soothing and… right. 

 

“I love you,” said Rey, looking up at the slightly-grubby underwing of the ship. 

 

“I know,” said Ben.

 

Rey looked over at him and elbowed him hard in the ribs. 

 

“Hey!” he said, laughing. He rolled onto his side to look at her. “I love you too.”

 

“Yeah,” said Rey, kissing him gently. “I know, too.”

~~~

They returned to Chandrila at the end of the week. The newly-elected system senators would be arriving, and Finn and Poe wanted Rey there to help smooth things over. The Senate’s first official vote was a bill of general amnesty for all Stormtroopers. Those who wished for help would be given aid and trained for a new job, they could search for their families, or they could leave if they saw fit. 

 

It was after that first vote that Rey and Ben left to find other Force users. They returned to Ach-To and put the Jedi texts away: the texts wouldn’t be seen as sacred anymore, but there was still information in there and lessons to be learned. 

 

Six months of the year Rey and Ben lived on Ach-to training anyone who came to them for help. It was slow at first; most parents weren’t willing to allow the former Supreme Leader of the First Order near their children. As time went on Kylo Ren’s reputation faded away and Ben Solo’s actions took its place. Children with the Force were told of the Jedi and the Sith. They were shown the darkness of the cave and the brilliance of the temple and hills. Mostly the children were told about balance and consequences and forgiveness. 

 

The other six months of the year the Solos traveled. They went to the Chandrila to visit their friends and to speak to the Senate, they went to the outer planets on aid missions, they went to planets so cold or so green that Rey could barely believe it. Every year they returned to Rath for the festival and they would remember that first date; their reprieve from the war. It was a happy life, a purposed life- a balanced life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it folks! I'm really proud of this story. I had a couple requests for Ben/Rey babies, but that isn't my scene so if you want to imagine they go off and make children, that's fine with me. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this story! Without readers there wouldn't be a point in writing, really. Thank you for sticking with me this far! If you'd like to make friends I'm lonelyspacebabies on tumblr. 
> 
> <3 Chris
> 
> PS. I don't care if you're reading this in a decade, I will ALWAYS appreciate a comment. Words last forever!


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